Search
We weren’t trying to win a Best Catered Wedding of the Year award when we created the menu for this beautiful wedding. We just wanted to get this couple’s dream exactly right.
All photo credits for this article: Jake Anderson
The bride and groom were both passionate foodies, and they had a clear vision of the food they wanted to serve. When the couple spelled out their vision at their first tasting, it was clear they’d put a lot of thought and love into their dream menu. It isn’t often we meet clients who are as passionate about food as we are, so this was a treat!
An Italian/American Celebration
The couple was planning to fly in their large, Italian families for this Utah destination wedding, and they wanted to treat their guests to something unforgettable. They asked us to create a feast that would highlight the couple’s love of fine food, celebrate their shared heritage, and draw their Italian and American guests together to get everyone talking and smiling at the table.
We loved that they wanted the food to do more than just please palates and fill bellies! In our philosophy, “breaking bread together” is the perfect way to unite people, overcome barriers, and celebrate the formation of new bonds.
The Vision
To create a menu that fulfilled their exacting vision, we began planning with the bride and groom many months before the wedding date. They had very specific criteria:
- The food should reflect both their Mediterranean heritage and their shared American history.
- The dishes should look and taste exquisite—the term they used was “restaurant quality.” In fact, they wanted dishes that closely resembled dishes from their favorite Ann Arbor restaurants. Guests should feel a high-end “tasting menu” vibe.
- At the same time, the meal should feel intimate and familiar, something that would make all their guests (Italian and American) feel at home.
- The food needed to be elevated yet unpretentious, fresh-made, and locally sourced.
- The meal should be complemented by ideal wine pairings.
With those criteria in mind, our team went to work.
Planning The Menu
Wisely, the bride and groom contacted us a full year before their wedding date. As foodies, they knew the wedding celebration they had in mind would take months of planning.
Because they got a jump on the process, there was enough time for us to do two separate tastings to dial in the menu to their precise preferences. We were also able to locate and special-order wines that were not available through the Utah state liqueur stores.
In the end, we created a blended menu featuring American favorites like grilled chicken and roasted asparagus, alongside Old World specialties like roasted branzino, house-made malfatti with black truffles, fried squash blossoms, arancini, and gelato.
We also decided to create an outdoor, Mediterranean-style open kitchen at the event, mainly for two reasons. First, building an outdoor kitchen right there at the event would allow us to prepare and serve the food straight to the plate. During cocktail hour, for example, the fried squash blossoms and sautéed scallops would hit the guests’ plates at their maximum freshness and flavor.
Second, the sights and scents of the open kitchen would be an irresistible draw for guests. Sure enough, as we roasted branzino in our wood-fired pizza ovens and cooked the chicken on our Santa Maria grill right in front of guests’ eyes, they couldn’t help their curiosity. Many guests came over to enjoy the spectacle and ask questions. The sights, smells, and sounds of sizzling meat created a rich sensory experience for everyone and beautifully fulfilled the bride and groom’s vision of bringing people together over food.
The Event
Following a welcome breakfast in Park City, the party moved to the glorious 4U Ranch in Peoa. With its state-of-the-art rustic barn, open horse pastures, towering Wasatch Mountains, and gentle murmuration of the Weber River in the background, 4U was the perfect venue for this touching ceremony…and the feasting that followed.
We kicked things off with cocktail hour and butler- passed appetizers:
- Classic fried squash blossoms in light beer batter
- Roasted beet arancini with habanero apricot glaze
- Pan-seared scallops glazed with almond caper butter
- Savory parmesan macarons with lemon thyme gelato and candied sage
In addition to local beers and the couples’ signature selection of white and red organic/natural wines, our Bacchus bartenders had designed four signature cocktails to highlight garden-fresh flavors and spirits found in Mediterranean, as well as American, classics. Each cocktail was a work of art with a perfect blend of flavors well suited to the fresh mountain air.
Three Course Reception Dinner
Diners sat down to a delectable serving of our house-baked focaccia at each place setting. That was followed by a first course of roasted beet salad with fennel, blood orange citrus disks, burrata, and red rock pistachios, dressed in honey citrus vinaigrette and garnished with chrysanthemum petals.
The second course of handmade ricotta malfatti with black truffle sauce was a beautiful take on an Italian home tradition. Similar to gnocchi, malfatti are soft, hand-formed balls of pasta known for tasting better than they look. (“Malfatti” means “badly formed.”)
For their third course, the bride and groom wanted the entrée to be the centerpiece of the table as well as the highlight of meal. Instead of our typical family-style meal (where we serve entrees and sides separately to be passed around), we plated the entrées on beautiful wood serving boards and placed them on risers in the middle of the table, where a floral centerpiece would typically be.
The entrée boards featured roasted half chickens with lemon preserves, Castelvetrano olives, and chimichurri. This was our take on one of the bride’s favorite dishes from her favorite restaurant, Spencer in Ann Arbor. In addition, we served lemon- and rosemary-stuffed branzino with caper butter. This was topped with a sun-dried tomato, artichoke, and kalamata olive relish. The sides we chose added color and texture to the boards: on-the-vine blistered cherry tomatoes and asparagus with olive oil, fresh lemon, and black garlic panko. (Our chef added the black garlic panko as a crisp textural note.)
The bride and groom were ecstatic with our interpretations of their favorite restaurant dishes and the ways we created an upscale, yet rustic and welcoming Mediterranean/American wedding feast.
Dessert and Dancing
The bride and groom wanted unpretentious, easy-to-eat desserts, and lots of dancing after dinner. We offered our house-made authentic Italian gelato, butler-passed fresh churros, and house-made caramel corn in bamboo cones. Signature cocktails were also available at the bar along with the couples’ selected wines and local beers. Some of the requested wines had to be special ordered and took months to obtain through our Utah liquor board. A few of their selections were not available at all, so we had our in-house sommelier contact a local natural/organic wine importer who suggested similar wines that were in stock within the state.
CATIE award for Best Catered Wedding of the Year
The pleasure of our guests and the delight of this newlywed couple was our reward for the planning and work we put into catering this event. So, it came as a bonus surprise when this wedding was chosen for a CATIE award for “Best Catered Wedding of the Year.”
The CATIE awards are considered the “Oscars of Catering.” Hosted by the International Caterers Association (ICA) and judged by a panel of top industry experts, they are the most respected prize awarded in the international catering community. We were deeply honored to learn that this wedding had been selected from among all the amazing contenders.
We were also delighted to learn that another of our events had been given the CATIE for The Best Catered Event of the Year for 2024.
