When planning your wedding you come across what feels like a million decisions along the way. Some you decide to go with, some you decide to skip. Most often the reason to skip something comes down to cost, and if you are trying to stick tight to your budget it may seem best to skip a lot of the things that seem unnecessary. I am a super practical person myself – and I carry this into my practices as a wedding planner – so I will be the first one to tell you to cut out the items that aren’t vital. But here is one area that I feel is totally worth the time and cost (if it even costs you anything) – menu tasting.

You have likely picked your venue or caterer based off of recommendations from friends, family, or reviews you’ve found online. You want good food and are confident that your caterer is going to provide that at your reception. You have gone through and made your selections for hors d’ouevres, appetizers, and entrees and you think you have made all the right choices along the way. But what if you get to your reception and the food isn’t exactly what you had expected? And what if that entree that sounded really good on paper ends up tasting, well, not so good? These are all the reasons to have a menu tasting. A menu tasting is done with your caterer (or your venue if their food service is provided on site) and is a chance for you to not only taste all of your menu choices but to learn more about the ingredients, the preparation, and to meet the chef who is putting it all together. You can decide then if you want to switch your choices to something else on the menu, or maybe if the chef allows it, you can tweak a dish a bit to get to a flavor that is more pleasing to your palette. And above all this is a great chance for you to reinforce the confidence you have that the food at your wedding is going to be nothing short of amazing.

Some caterers/venues charge a fee for menu tasting for the majority of places include this as complimentary for the bride and groom. If your caterer offers a tasting for free definitely take advantage of it! And even if it comes with a small cost I still highly recommend doing it. There are some things you may want to take a chance on for your wedding, but the food (which, let’s not forget is a HUGE cost in your overall wedding budget) is not an area you want to take a risk with. Schedule your tasting, feast on your wedding food, and enjoy this nice time with your fiance. Trust me it’s worth it!

Photo by Rob Spring Photography