The Story So Far: the Food

The initial conversation about food at the wedding went something like this:

A: I want Ethiopian.
My mom: Nobody's going to even know what that is, let alone like it. There's a time and a place, and this is not it.

And so I began the lengthy process of looking for caterers, reading through menus, picking out items, getting quotes, and going back to the drawing board when the in-season mostly-vegetarian menus I'd picked cost $Z,OMG. We repeated this process a few times until something lucky, if not downright auspicious, happened: my mother went to a wedding and ate food truck food.* And she came back saying, "If you love it, the guests will love it. Or they'll at least not hold anything against you for it. Unless they're jerks or idiots."**

And so, we will be serving (as long as we like the restaurant when we go over the holidays) Ethiopian food, which conveniently lends itself to family style.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

We'll provide forks and knives for those who want them. But we'll also make explanatory cards for those who haven't tried it before, re-teaching everyone how to eat with their hands (I'd been feeling a bit light on paper goods, and the creative possibilities there-in, as we're not doing all that much in the way of invitations). And honestly, what's more fun than eating with your hands in fancy clothes? And it's true: if we love it, our guests will at the very least notice and respect that.

For dessert, we're thinking a small cake and a lot of pie.

* I'm going to pause right here. This is starting to sound more critical of my mom than I intended. My mother is not some super-old-fashioned, you-must-do-things-this-way-because-that's-how-they're-done kind of person. She is not an I'm-going-to-control-your-wedding kind of person. She is instead a thoughtful, modern, feminist who knows how to throw a hell of a party. But of course, a wedding is (or can be, and I hope mine is) more than just a hell of a party. It's a hell of a party for three times more people than any of us has ever planned for before. And she knows about as much as I do about the whole thing--namely, very little. Had I known better than to limit my own thinking on the matter, I'd have calmly explained why we wanted what we did, and why it would work.


** Last bit paraphrased. Or downright made up. But that was the sentiment.