Wedding Wednesday: Mmm Mmm Good!

Or so we hoped.

As I mentioned before, our reception site was owned by a caterer who we were required to use. I'd heard good things about them previously, but I was still a little apprehensive about our food. M and I are picky eaters. Very picky eaters. I really wanted to be able to eat something at my own reception.

My apprehensiveness caused me to delay contacting the caterer for several months after we booked the ballroom. I finally decided it was time when M and I scheduled a week long vacation from work. We were able to book an appointment a week ahead of time and they asked us to call back a couple days before with choices of what we'd like to taste.

M and I looked over the menus that had been included with our reception packet and picked out several different meats to try. We would be having a buffet, so we had to pick two meats. We also decided to try the green beans because I am picky about my green beans.

Our tasting was free and we could bring along whoever we wanted. We asked my mom and M's brother (who is a groomsman) to come along. M's brother does a lot of cooking and I consider him to be a foodie. I knew I get good feedback from him.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a friendly gentleman who turned out to be our caterer. He brought out our selections 2 at a time and gave us privacy to try the food and comment on it among ourselves. Of course, I took pictures!

First up, the ham.
I love ham. M does not. In fact, he wouldn't even try it. This was a honey-glazed ham and it was delicious. Sweet, but tasty. I was sold on having this as one of our choices. Beforehand we had decided that we would do ham and a chicken dish, so I tried this to be certain I liked the ham.

Next, bourbon glazed chicken breasts.
We were all curious to try this because it was so unique. M and I both liked it and wouldn't have minded including this on the menu.

Next, baked chicken.
This one was boring. At first, we all thought it would be BBQ because of the red sauce, but it wasn't. The caterer told us later that it was a rub that used paprika or cumin or some such red spice. I didn't think it had much flavor to it at all. It was out as a choice.

Next, Italian marinated grilled chicken breasts.
This was awesome! I loved it, M loved it, mom loved it, brother loved it. It was a clear winner! In fact, I planned on having both ham and chicken on my plate at the reception!

I didn't get a picture of the green beans, but they were nice. The caterer made them almondine, of which I'm not a big fan. The great news was that our caterer was more than willing to make anything you wanted. So, we asked him to make the green beans with bacon because that's my favorite vegetable.

After we tasted everything, we sat down and got to business. We discussed menu and made our choices for the other parts of our buffet. Here's what it looked like:

2 meats: Ham and Italian marinated grilled chicken breasts
2 starches: mashed potatoes and gravy and Italian herb papardelle pasta with alfredo sauce
Vegetable: green beans with bacon
Dinner rolls
Caesar Salad
We would also be doing an appetizer course beforehand of fresh veggies and fruit with cheese and crackers.

Yum! I couldn't wait to try all the food at our reception.