Menu cohesion

I picked food my husband and I like. We did a custom menu because it was cheaper to do buffet style than plated and all of their standard menus were plated. We has three apps during cocktail hour. They had a list of options to choose from, but I really wanted fried ravoli which wasn't on their menu, but they agreed to make it so we had fried ravoli, grilled cheese squares with tomato, basil and cheese on them, and mango mustard chicken bites. Prior to the buffet opening, we had a plated salad which was Caesar salad. Our buffet consisted of tortellini and penna pasta with your choice of vodka sauce or Alfredo, prime rib, carved turkey, mashed potatoes, and roasted veggies. We also had vanilla wedding cake with white icing for dessert. We had a candy bar with an assortment of candy that was open during the entire reception. For a late night snack we had a nacho bar which had seasoned beef, torilla chips, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream, salsa, jalapenos, and cheese. We had one vegan and one vegetarian so they had a plated menu which was risotto with marinated and grilled veggies. That was the only option they offered. We also had one person who can't eat gluten so they had gluten free pasta for her. Our vendors were supposed to have a plate chicken meal, but our venue messed up and sent them to the buffet which was fine by me because I thought it was odd that they couldn't just eat from the buffet to begin with.

Im trying to recreate our first date food as best I can. (Pizza/ drinks) I was thinking about having salad too, but changed my mind after like 75% of a recent thread said dont bother. Not gonna lie, that was a huge relief bc I was stressing finding a salad that would be simple, but no romaine since it makes my mom throw up.


Im strongly considering making rainbow hummus and setting out veggies (possibly home grown,) homemade bread, and crackers (store bought) for cocktail hour. No real theme with the food, but we just dont see it as important as other things. Plus pizza is carbs and my kid sister is type one and something low carb might not be so great for her after a long day. She gets dibs on leftovers too since nights are when she has problems the most.

We picked stuff we liked and was a general choice that we felt most people would like. then those with special dietary needs were a separate meal.

I picked food i'd like. the set menu for instance called for chicken and i upgraded it to duck because after trying both, the chicken was just ugh aha. but i am so glad i did that even though it costs more because people raved about the food. particularly the duck.

We wanted our theme to be "Colorado" so we had a ton of food from our immediate area. Our wedding was rustic & country, but also semi-formal so the food was still more formal.