Wedding food can really be a stressful subject. More than most other communal meals we share with friends and family, your wedding menu includes the added pressure of being a reflection of you and your significant other, appropriately excellent for the occasion and appealing to all the attendees. As any food nerd who has ever gotten married will probably tell you, what starts out as a thrilling prospect (to plan a huge, mind-blowing dinner party for the people you love) can often devolve quickly into nerves, frustration and lots and lots of money.
The stock response to this kind of panic? Chicken, beef or fish. UGH. The dreaded invitation insert. Why on this day of celebration, joy and the coming together of two people and two families, do we frequently insist on feeding each other airplane food? I've never understood it -- maybe I never will. Which is why, as the very sweet caterer who was charged with our wedding dinner will tell you, I was extremely specific about the kind of dinner I wanted to have.
We got married in late August in Cape Cod. I was blessed to be marrying a dude who is fantastic with logistics, obsessed with details and thoroughly, utterly excited to plan things. We agreed quickly on the atmosphere we wanted to set: guests were presented with beers and pickles on sticks to enjoy during the ceremony, the attire was listed as "picnic fabulous" (good luck explaining that to your grandparents, guys) and he and I knew right off the bat that we would not be serving chicken, beef or fish. We wanted our wedding dinner to be like coming to our house for a dinner party, which meant we went heavy on the snacks and booze (pimento cheese, deviled eggs, oysters, radishes with butter and salt, etc.), and the main events were grilled cheese and soup.
Our grilled cheese and soup bar threw our caterer at first, but he recovered quickly and our guests enjoyed an unlimited, a la minute feast of grilled American cheese on brioche, grilled mac and cheese and ribeye on challah, grilled brie with pears and mustard on pumpernickel and (ready?) grilled lobster, bacon and havarti on country white. The cups of vichyssoise, gazpacho and butternut squash bisque flowed freely. We drank beer and danced until four in the morning. It was, somewhat unintentionally, one of the best meals of my life.
Since we're just before wedding season really starts to go bananas, we figured there are probably some of you out there grappling with what to feed yourselves and your guests. Before you settle for chicken, beef or fish, think of the options! We asked each other and our readers to tell us all about the best wedding food of their lives.
What's the best wedding food you've ever eaten? Let us know in the comments, or tweet at us @HuffPostTaste.