One of the most challenging parts of picking your wedding menu is pleasing everyone’s palate. With hundreds of people with various tastes, this can be nearly impossible. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give some additional thought and preparation. While you hope you get 5 star service and taste, ensuring that there is enough and everyone gets served promptly can be a feat on its own. The following are helpful food mistakes to avoid when selecting your reception fare.

Foregoing Appetizers During the Cocktail Hour

Weddings can be a costly event in a couple’s life. While you may want to be frugal in some of your offerings, you don’t want to make the error of scaling back on the wrong things. Offering appetizers to guests is important, especially when serving with cocktails. If guests are just coming from the ceremony where you’ve exchanged vows, they may be hungry. Hosting options such as cheese and crackers, veggie platters and other unique party foods can be enough to tame your guests hunger. If people are drinking, it can also prevent individuals from becoming inebriated before dinner has been served.

Selecting Off-Season Foods

There are a number of celebratory things a bride and groom can do to give a venue a festive air about it. Wedding favors are a timeless tradition to thank guests for attending your special day. Placed at the entrance, votive candles, glassware, coasters and jars are impressive sentiments to take home. If you’re looking to continue to “wow” guests throughout the evening, you want your food at its prime. Select fresh veggies and fruits that are popular to the time of year instead of off-season. You’ll pay less for the produce. Plus, when picked at its peak, you’ll find it to be the highest quality. During the summer, berries, melons, green beans and snap peas are prime choices. Fall’s bounty can include squash, apples, pears, root vegetables, sweet potatoes and pomegranates.

Offering a Wide Range of Options

While you may have put in months and months of planning and preparation into your wedding, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your wedding day will pass. Instead of worrying over how to make everything perfect, you should instead focus on enjoying every minute. Choosing a menu for your reception is important, but don’t offer a wide range of options. If you’re selection of food is too broad, you could pay a lot of money for this service. If you’re on a limited budget, two to three choices can be more than enough. Most couples typically pick a beef, chicken or seafood dinner choice. You also don’t need both appetizers and a dessert table. Since guests are typically full after the meal, a piece of cake or ice cream can make a satisfying finish.

Choosing Foods with Little to No Color

Most prospective brides and grooms schedule a tasting before making the final decision on their food choices for their reception meal. This can be a great way to best determine how the food is prepared and what it will actually taste like come the day of your wedding. Your meal should also look just as good as it tastes. Ask the chef if they can keep the selections colorful. Instead of regular iceberg lettuce, see if they have a salad with vibrant offerings such as deep greens, berries, carrots and tomatoes. If you’re choosing steak or chicken, pick bright sides such as red potatoes and sautéed mixed vegetables.

Fulfilling Each Guests Dietary Needs

Wedding planning can be challenging, and you may need to find ways to relieve stress before the big day. Fulfilling your guests every dietary need can be especially difficult. Whether it’s dairy, gluten, fruits or nuts, it seems more and more people have some type of food allergy. But you won’t be able to cater to each individual person’s needs. Because it’s your wedding, you need to select the options that appeal to you the most. As long as you offer a meat, fish and vegetarian option, your guests will have more than enough choices to select from.

Although you may want to spend hours and hours agonizing over what you’re going to serve guests at your reception, chances are most won’t remember what they’ve eaten weeks after the event. Worrying excessively can also cause you to make more errors in your menu selection. The above guide will help you avoid the most common mistakes when selecting your wedding menu.

Author’s Bio

​Judy lees is a super-connector with AYC Web Solutions who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, and networking. She frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing and focuses her efforts on developing customized blogger outreach plans depending on the industry and competition.