Feeding The Crowd

This past weekend, Keegan and I traveled to Missouri to do a number of wedding things as well as see my middle sister graduate and my youngest sister's dance recital (it was an extremely packed Saturday.)

Anyways, the first thing we did Saturday was our food tasting with Hy-Vee in Columbia. I'll admit it, I was nervous for this tasting. Since Hy-Vee is a grocery store, I figured the food wouldn't be the best, especially since we're only paying $8 per person. I figured we would leave the tasting less than thrilled and would have to scramble to find another caterer in the next few weeks.

Boy was I wrong.

Trevor, Hy-Vee's catering coordinator, came out with a bunch of food for us. We had told him that we wanted to try out their pasta bar so he brought out small bowls full of penne with Alfredo and marinara sauce as well as some meatballs. He also brought out a plate of small sandwiches and chicken wings in honey BBQ sauce and spicy wing sauce. I had totally forgotten that I had mentioned that I wanted to try some of their appetizers so I was pleasantly surprised with the addition of the sandwiches and wings. Trevor also brought out pieces of cake in chocolate, white and a chocolate-peanut butter mix.

We all sampled the pasta first while Trevor explained that we can pick two different pastas, two sauces, and one meat topping. The Alfredo sauce was a bit watery, but Trevor explained that it wouldn't be that way for our wedding. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the pasta. I'm somewhat picky about my Alfredo sauces, but Hy-Vee's was great. The marinara sauce was equally good and the meatball was amazing. Possibly the best meatball I've ever tasted.  The only problem was it was large, and hard to cut with plastic silverware, so Trevor said he could provide their appetizer size meatballs for easier consumption.

While Trevor continued to explain our choices, I chowed down on a wing. The sauce wasn't too spicy, but had a nice kick to it. I didn't try the honey BBQ one, but Keegan said he enjoyed both of them. We were thinking about serving the wings with the pasta, they were that good, but we figured that would be an odd combination. Keegan and my mom tried the sandwiches, but we ultimately decided that we are not going to have any appetizers.

Next up was the cake. I'm not a huge fan of buttercream and I knew that Hy-Vee made a whipped cream frosting, so I asked for that with the samples. The cake was moist, sweet but not too sweet, and the whipped cream frosting was perfect. We tried both chocolate and white cake, as well as our own concoction of chocolate and peanut butter. We loved all of them and even had enough cake to take home to my dad and sisters.

Ultimately our tasting went better than I expected. We are extremely happy with Hy-Vee's food and can't wait to serve it at our wedding.

Our guests will feast upon:
~ fettuccine and penne pasta
~ Alfredo and marinara sauce
~ meat balls 
~ Caesar salad
~ garlic breadsticks

Drinks:
~ Keg of Boulevard Wheat beer, made in Kansas City, MO
~ 12 bottles of Les Bourgeois wine (6 white, 6 red.) The winery is about a 45 minute drive from Columbia.  
~ tea, lemonade and bottled water

Sweet Stuff:
~ We're having a mix of the chocolate, white, and chocolate-peanut butter cupcakes with the whipped
   cream frosting.
~ A small cake for us to cut. We originally wanted to do a huge cupcake, but Hy-Vee doesn't have the molds. I let Keegan choose the cake and he wanted white.
~ There may or may not be a groom's cake in the works. Shhh, it's a surprise!
~ There also might be an appearance of family recipe cookies later in the night.
~ S'mores! This was the one thing I knew I wanted since before we got engaged. The pavilion has a couple of grills just outside the door which will be perfect for roasting marshmallows on.

Hy-Vee will also provide the plates, cups, silverware, chafing dishes, napkins and service for up to 2 hours. They would have provided linens for the tables, but we already bought some. They will provide linens for the serving tables. Since we're having a keg, Trevor suggested getting bigger cups than the ones they will be providing specifically for the beer. Now we're on the hunt for "classy" SOLO cups, or something similar. Anyone have any ideas?

So this is what our guests will be eating on our wedding day. I'm beyond excited to see this happen. Our tasting has been in the works since February, so finally meeting Trevor and deciding what we're going to serve was a huge weight off my shoulders. This was the last big piece of the puzzle, and I'm so glad it came together so easily.

One discussion that Keegan and I had last night. Would it be easier for guests to eat pasta and sauce on a plastic plate or bowl? I'm thinking bowl, but Keegan thinks that a plate will suffice. Any opinions? I don't want our guests trying to spear a piece of penne and it shooting off a plate and getting on their nice clothes.