“Party with the Newlyweds”

Bradford Catered Events presents a recently catered wedding celebration:

Mandee + Eric

Mandee and Eric were married in Savannah, Georgia.  About a week after the ceremony, they enjoyed a “Party with the Newlyweds” reception back home in Knoxville.  Held at the Knoxville Zoo, the event occurred beneath a large tent decorated in a whimsical loft-style, allowing plenty of room to work in our catering and buffet displays.

Mandee and Eric are both very knowledgeable and interested in great food.  In fact, on Twitter they’re known as @knoxfoodie!  They wanted food to play a central role in the success of this celebration, so we worked with the couple to develop dishes that reflected their tastes, budget, worries and wishes, easing any concerns and delighting the foodies’ (and their guests’) palates.

Together we decided on a menu, which began with a cheese board featuring Welch cheddar and red dragon cheese during cocktail hour.  Guests met in the new tiger exhibit while they awaited the couple’s entrance and the “meat” of their culinary experience.

After a few meetings and tastings with the couple to make sure our menu was perfect, we decided on an enchanting array of graze-able items, which included:

• Soup Shooters: split pea and roasted pumpkin
• Chicken and waffles with jalapeño dipping sauce
• Spinach & artichoke dip with toast rounds
• Deviled eggs with pickled onions and candied bacon
• Cucumber cups with garlic herbed cheese

 Also on the party menu were goat quesadillas with chipotle marinated goat and a delicious Andouille sausage station.  The couple was a bit worried that guests would be reluctant to try their new favorite meat: goat.  We worked out a few details in our menu, dubbing the delicious dish a ‘Cuban quesadilla’ instead of referring to it as a goat taco, and that item ended up being one of the first chosen by buffet-goers!  Eric later said, “It was fun the following week letting people know they had eaten and LOVED the goat quesadillas.”

The dessert table was also a hit.  This station featured banana pudding shooters, Georgia special cake shooters, peanut butter cream cheese tarts and mini lemon tarts.

A night of drinking and dancing meant that guests would eventually be hungry for a few more late night snacks.  We helped the couple to select and serve pork belly sandwiches on corn cakes with arugula, tomato and pickled radish before the evening was through.

“Being the Knoxfoodies, we wanted to make this meal as special as possible on the scale/budget we were working with.  Bradford Catered Events was so very open—from the very beginning—to taking our recipes, scaling them up and adding their own flair.  We met with Diane early on in our planning process because we knew food would be a central theme. They were so great to work with and to challenge.” –Eric McNew.

The event was a true success, thanks to the couple’s vision and the contributions from a variety of skilled vendors.

Venue: Knoxville Zoo
Floral and Design: Whimsical Gatherings
Photographer: Adrienne Lampe Photography
Stationary Design: Eric McNew
Band: Taboo
Flowers Donated to: Random Acts of Flowers