Weddingbee

You asked, so I’m delivering. Let’s talk about food, baby!

As a prelude, here’s a hilarious wedding menu-related storyline from one of Mr. St’s favorite comics, Achewood:

(click to enlarge!)

We have that very same question about our wedding menu, too! How to have a great wedding menu that is not too stuffy, but still adventurous, delicious, and local to boot.

If we were having the wedding nearly anywhere but New Orleans, you better believe our menu would be heavy on the Filipino cuisine. Having lechon, leche flan, and various mango desserts, along with some banging seafood, would have made me one ecstatic Sweet Tea.

But we decided on New Orleans, and the whole game was changed. As I wrote before, a big part of our decision to marry here was the food and drinking culture. While in New Orleans, what else to serve but some Creole and Cajun classics, with a twist?

On this trip to NOLA, I was most excited, and nervous, for our food tasting. I’d already had some great (and less-than-good) experiences at the various tastings for our prospective venues Mr. ST and I visited in January. Our first caterer at the WAX was a disappointment, but now that we are going with well-known New Orleans catering company, Pigéon, my worries are no longer.

For our passed appetizers, my mom and I tasted:

Crawfish cakes (left) and crab cakes (right).
Pigéon’s versions are apparently so popular in New Orleans that the company makes them for local supermarkets for people to buy in the freezer aisle! No defrosted cakes for the wedding, though: these are made fresh with local ingredients, as is everything else on Pigéon’s roster. We’re going with the crawfish cakes- mm mm!

Crabmeat Stuffed Mushrooms (left) and Oysters Rockefeller Tarts (right). You know I love me some oysters! We’re already having Oysters Bienville, but honestly, who says no to oysters? The tarts were awesome! Liked the mushrooms okay, but realized we probably needed a vegetarian passed item, so these were cut.

Final Appetizer Decisions: Oysters Rockefeller Tarts, Oysters Bienville, Crawfish Cakes, and either Spanakopita or Phyllo-wrapped Asparagus/Asiago for the vegetarian option

Then it was on to salads and entrees, and we sampled:

Pigéon’s Signature “Celebration Salad”: Mixed spring greens with walnuts, bleu cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, golden raisins, and tossed with pepper jelly vinaigrette. Deee-licious.

Another signature dish: Crabmeat Mournay, described as “Crabmeat sautéed in yellow onions blended with Monterey, Pepper Jack, and Cream Cheese topped with hand chopped chives and fresh parsley, served with toast points.” Whew! It sounded kind of dodgy from the description but oh man this was good. It had lots of lump crabmeat, and didn’t have a paté consistency like I feared it would. The toast points are made from scratch, and the whole thing, as advertised, “brings you back for seconds and thirds!”

Miniature Muffulettas: Yummy, but I didn’t think the bread would hold up if on the buffet for too long. Taste was great, but didn’t feel right for our evening cocktail reception.

Chicken and Andouille Gumbo.
I’ve had a lot of gumbo in my life, and let me tell you, this was some of the best. Perfect consistency and spice, and totally New Orleans. Yum!

We also tried a great vegetarian Jambalaya, and will possibly be adding their signature Mango Pork dish they say is fabulous. If I can’t have my lechon, I’ll take the mango pork!

Main Menu Decisions: Celebration Salad, Crabmeat Mournay, Vegetarian Jambalaya, Chicken and Andouille Gumbo, and Mango Pork

We were totally stuffed at this point, but they said they didn’t want to leave us without dessert! We couldn’t try the Bananas Foster that we’ll probably be having at the wedding (who doesn’t love fire at a wedding!?), but they did give us some amazing bread pudding in white chocolate sauce:

Now, I told you my family loves them some bread pudding, but I had no idea my mother would love this version so much she would insist we add it to our menu! With bananas foster and wedding cake PLUS bread pudding, I fear a sugar comatose will afflict our guests, but there may be a possible compromise: lose the bananas foster (no fuego!) but have a bananas fosters sauce on top of the bread pudding. Sounds delish to me! I really do like the idea of bananas on fire, though, so we’ll see if we can make this work.

Our tasting was amazing, but it took so long! I’m sure it didn’t help that we kept asking to try things we hadn’t planned on (the muffulettas, crawfish/crab cakes), but it was totally worth it. The staff at Pigéon’s happily obliged our gluttony, and I am so excited for our guests to try our menu! I just hope we have the chance to enjoy it too! With all the (possibly unknown) foods to try, I’m glad we are sticking to the cocktail/buffet format, so people have the chance to eat and mingle without being stuck to one dish (or to one table).

So… how do you think our menu sounds? What are y’all doing for your wedding menu?

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