Reception catering

For those caterers or restaurants he wants - is there anything nicer? Perhaps not fried chicken but other chicken dishes that would appear nicer?

I mean for the fried chicken he essentially wants kfc or popeyes... so I dont really know. But i am very traditional when it comes to a wedding and what I want. I want a nice, table service at least 3-course meal, not something that looks like we just threw it together at the last second.

I went to a wedding recently that did pizza for food. They could not keep the buffet table stocked fast enough or keep the pizza hot. It was not a good choice and we left hungry. I would stress to him the importance of good, hot and plentiful food to feed your guests. An experienced wedding/event caterer will be the only ones who can pull that off seamlessly.

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Also your guests have dressed up to come to your wedding and they probably don't want to eat with their hands or eat messy food. Maybe ask him to pick something that needs a knife and fork.

I would explain to him that you want something to fit the formality of your wedding. You could totally do a plated meal with fried chicken as one of the entree options.

View Quoted Comment That is a point I didn't think of. Thank you

View Quoted Comment Thank you.

What about compromising and finding like a gourmet wood fired pizza company? Around here they'll bring the pizza oven on like a trailer and cook all the pizzas there on site.

View Quoted Comment Ok but you told him he could choose I think maybe meet him halfway. Maybe find a company that caters fried chicken. Maybe do pizza for rehearsal dinner.

Are you sure he's not messing with you?
I would explain to him when you said he could pick the catering you assumed he was going down a traditional route of wedding catering ideas and not take out. Food and beverage are in the top 3 if not #1 things guests remember about a wedding...good or bad.

Well it's just the reception so I think it's fine. If you wanted a formal event you could mention to him fried chicken isn't a formal dish and you wanted something a little more filling.
Where I live we have food trucks that will come on site and cook what you want, I've seen that for weddings and think it's cool, not sure you want that but you could look into more upscale vendors like coal pizza or a company that does it's own sauces for the chicken.
Also the wings could be an appetizer for a more formal meal, he could pick something else to go with it all.

This is the conversation I am having with him at the moment. Scribbled out messages/ lines are either Personal info or irrelevant to this discussion.

Looks like you and FH have two very different ideas about weddings and their formality/informality. Ultimately, it is the decision of the couple as to how formal/informal their wedding is. But I agree with most PPs here. If you hire a company that is inexperienced in catering weddings, you may end up with food that is cold, and not very good. The other thing I agree with is that the food is one of the things the guests really look forward to, and will remember, good or bad. There has got to be a compromise here, where FH gets the kind of food he wants, but from an experienced wedding caterer who can pull it off. I'm not sure what FH means by "pre-selected" companies. If your venue allows you to bring in outside catering, then you and FH decide which companies will provide your food. And, like you told him, you will be able to do a tasting, and choose the foods you like best for the menu.

My cousin did a pizza bar at her wedding a couple weeks ago and people absolutely went nuts over it! It is a know your crowd thing for sure and also the type of wedding you are having. Hers was super casual in a backyard setting so it worked great for her. Obviously if you are having a more black tie style wedding, I would be pretty confused if I walked in and was expected to eat pizza in an evening gown lol

Perhaps a compromise? Do the nice catered dinner you want for the actual dinner at the reception and maybe do a "late night snack" of the food he wants (like dollar burgers from McDonald's or something to keep costs low?)

That sounds like late night party food that can be brought to the venue during the wedding for all the drunk munchies!

What kind of venue are you guys having? As others have said, pizza and fried chicken makes sense if it's a casual wedding in a backyard or something. However, it may not fit in a different venue. For instance, ours is being held in a country club ballroom overlooking a golf course. While fried chicken is delicious, it would look pretty out of place in our venue setting. Compromise (from both sides) is important in a marriage, and wedding planning is one of the 1st but obstacles lol. Good luck! I feel for you. If you my fiance suggested that, I'd be totally against it too. Thankfully, he also agrees on the plated multi-course meal lol.

I actually thought about having pizza, nachos, and tacos myself. that was when we planned on having the reception at a private bowling alley. We now have a hall and are getting it catered. I like fried chicken as a meal option and I like mini pizzas as an appetizer or late night snack.

Ok wow. I have a lot of thoughts.
I agree with a lot of the previous posts. Totally dependent upon the type of formality you're having.

Portillo's caters? Interesting. Did not know.

To me, this seems more expensive than actual catering. But we went thru a grocery store caterer and did taco bar for less than $10/person.

I'd try to convince him to go thru a regular normal caterer. And do fried chicken that way. I've been to several buffet weddings with fried chicken.

We are paying for our rehearsal dinner and we are doing pizza and pasta (Papa Johns & Fazolis). We are making our rehearsal super informal. That might be a compromise you could make. Do the "fast food" style for the rehearsal if you can't get him off this idea.

Without trying to be political, if this were my fiance, I'd point out the time that the current president invited a sports team to the White House and served them fast food burgers. And the several articles shaming him for it. Not sure about your fiance, but mine would drop the idea and run away as fast as he could.

But I totally agree with you, if they dont usually do catering, they aren't going to have the proper equipment to keep food the correct temperature. That responsibility will fall onto you, and you could give several guests food poisoning, and that is not what I would want my wedding remembered for.

Good luck!

I actually think you have a bigger issue than the caterer here. It sounds like you two aren’t even kind of on the same page about the type of event you want. I’d table worrying about a caterer and focus on compromising on the level of formality of your event first.