Curating the Perfect Menus - Decoded!!

Weddings in India are about all family, food and fanfare. With destination and themed weddings soaring high the good old days where a "Halwai" and his team would whip up meals are now a distant memory. Exotic food, off beat cuisines, fusion food and some lip smacking delicacies from regions of India are now on menus curated by professional Chefs and caterers.

We’ve jotted a few tips to help you through the process of crafting menus and ensure your guests leave with happy stomachs and satiated taste buds!

Understand Your Guest List

Before you go about selecting the cuisine you definitely ought to ponder over guest preferences, nationality, locality, religious beliefs etc. However do not try and please every single guest, because that is practically unachievable. Look to please the majority and you'll be much better off. Having said that, also bear in mind that your menu is catering to varied taste buds. Do not load the menu with all of your favorite foods. Even though this is your special day, not everyone likes the same things you do. As much as you want your menus to be unique, leave scope for some mainstream preparations. Not every guest likes experimenting with food and may seek some common food to keep them satiated. Try to hit all the bases with your spread: beef, seafood, poultry and vegetables. If you're having a pasta bar and always order spicy arrabiata sauce, make sure there's also a milder option for those who aren't big on heat.

Take Time to Sit and Discuss Preferences with the Chef

Arrange a meeting with the Chef/Caterer to share your preference s. If you have special requests for Jain meals, gluten free meals, meals without egg or nuts etc. Be sure to communicate in advance. Most hotels make provision to accommodate these requests. If you seek exotic food such as sushi, lobsters etc confirm the supplement cost applicable to avoid any last minute surprises.  You could either personally take up all menu related discussion personally with the Chef or have your event planner coordinate the same. Have your Chef arrange a food tasting to check on the flavors and presentation of the food that will be served to your guests. While you might want perfection, do not be too imposing, check on the strengths of the culinary team you have roped in and use them. It’s wiser to let the Chefs showcase their expertise instead of trying to crack your grandma’s recipes. Although you’re dealing with culinary experts the end result is most likely going to differ from what your grandma made.  

If you are really keen on including a traditional dish and want to nail the authenticity, then bringing a "Maharaj" who is an expert with the dish is the best thing to do. Check with your hotel on their policy for letting in external Chefs.

Go Local and Fresh

With tremendous progress in transportation, raw material can be sourced by the caterer/hotel quite easily. However nothing beats fresh and seasonal produce from the local markets. Consult your chef to check on the ingredients that will be available in the season that you plan your wedding and then craft your menu around those. Using fresh, seasonal ingredients also enhances the flavor while helping you contain catering costs. Adding some flavorful touches native to your wedding destination is also a good idea.

Consider The Season,Time and Venue 

Serving spicy food in hot summer weather is not the best idea! You’d rather have food which has a cooling effect and helps your guests beat the heat. Popsicle's, watermelon based drinks, fresh salads and finger food works best for day events by the pools or outdoors. Some warm soups, live grills, and warm desserts will help your guest’s battle events in the open against cold winter nights.

Interactive Food Counters

Live food counters; wherein your guests can interact with the Chefs preparing their meals is great way to have your guests flavor preferences included in the food they eat.  Live stations also send out wafting aroma around your wedding venues that is bound to make your guests drag themselves to the food stations to find out whats cooking.

Watch The Serving Size

Meals at weddings mean your guests have a plethora of options to choose from. Most guests would love to try and taste everything on the menus. Having small portion sizes helps guests try out all the options without having to worry about wasting food.

Do Not Eliminate Indian Food

While international flavors are loved by most, having some Indian options on the buffet is a safe bet for those to prefer familiar flavors. The situation works the other way round as well, if you have international guests, do not go overly Indian. Balance is the key.

Add Personal Touches

Share the story of your relationship through your menu by serving dishes inspired by special moments, memories or things you love to do together. Right from Chaat Dates, to the food you enjoy the most as a couple. You could even rename some dishes to add a fun element or have mini easel stands explaining the concept behind choosing a particular dish or food. Some Pastry Chefs can also curate desserts with your initials or caricatures.

DIY Your Way Through!!

Last Decade has shown me evolution of Destination weddings in India, from family planned and executed to professionally curated and styled Weddings. Unheard Destinations, New trends, Fashion, Jewellery, Hashtags, Media coverage and the never ending expectations. These weddings though bring a lot of ease and comfort along with value for money , however they miss one element – Personal Touches…

From the home made Mathri and Toshas in Punjabi weddings to Hand crafted gifts for bridesmaids. Mehendi was a ceremony of building bond and Haldi was purification ( it still symbolises the same). However the commercialization of Weddings does not stop us from adding those personal touches, we go an extra mile to understand the bride and groom and their families and spend a bit of extra time and but of extra effort and creativity to let them relive their moments of growing up.

We’ve got you some insight that will help you through the course of going the DIY way!

There is a lot do as a bride to be. Shuttling between your full time job, getting your wedding preparations done and your social obligations may not leave you the time to get crafty. However, taking the DIY décor route at your wedding does not necessarily mean you spend long laborious hours of engagement with the tapes, scissors, glue guns and fabric. 

While you pick your event planner, you could rope in a company that will be open to custom make DIY décor. Getting your event planner to do it also means they bring in just the right amount of creative inspiration and artistic expertise you need to add finesse to the décor and to avoid ending up with décor that looks more like elementary school craft projects.

Well afcourse if you wish to get your hands dirty with some paint and glue alongside your bridesmaid or groomsmen you could definitely take up one project to work on as a team that is less imposing and can be pulled off with ease! (Its fun adding personal touches to your décor and it also give you quality time with your favourite folk before the wedding)

DIY reflects your personality

Your wedding is about you and your groom! DIY weddings are a great way to show off your personality and are contrary to the idea of picking up a pre designed theme or readily available décor and incorporating it at your events. Whether you’re a glam diva or geek and chic creating a wedding that is the definition of everything you love will make your day even more special.

Most great DIY elements stem from everyday things such your favourite book, movie, your first date, or just what the two of you love together as a couple.

Spend time with your event planner to design your décor and themes and help them understand your personalities, so the team is better equipped to DIY décor that is more you and less routine.

Why you need an event planner to help?

Planning a wedding brings in a whole lot of stress, topping it up with extra work will only add to the stress and leave you with pre wedding jitters. If you have never crafted anything before, customizing and rolling out invites, designing the centerpieces, wedding favours and other elements on a time crunch could be rather overwhelming, moreover if you do not  have a team to back you up.

Going head on with too many things can get extremely awry and may leave you regretting your DIY idea.

Also bear in mind that everything you make may not always turn out to resemble the image in your mind or the one you downloaded from pinterest and can not only lead to disappointment, but also lead to waste of the time and money  which is not the ideal situation to be in prior to your wedding. Hence having your event planner do it for you lets you have fantastic DIY décor only minus the stress!

Before you confirm your DIY Designs!

Before you choose the DIY projects you want to include in your wedding décor you have to consider the venue chosen and confirm the do’s and don’ts with the management. You do not want the décor made, to never end up being hung or used.  Some spaces are simply beautiful and may need just a few touches to further accentuate and prep the venue for the event. Also note that DIY projects may not always be cost effective and some projects may require a whole lot of raw material and skilled labour to put together.

Considering these factors ahead of time will help you scan through the options available on pinterest and instagram with ease and know exactly what you need.

You could choose to have one whole event that screams DIY or have some elements at each event that are custom made with DIY touches. Striking the perfect balance between what to DIY and what NOT TO DIY is key!

 See some of the DIY created by us to see that extra inch of happiness on a bride or Groom’s face 

Photo Booth

Add a photo corner to the wedding with child hood pictures of the couple and the families, and let them relive those little / cute/ emotional moments. Or also pick up elements from your store room that were once part of a birthday party or were created by your girls to give you a surprise .

 This bride – Seshmitha wanted us to use the XOXO Created by her girls for one of her birthday parties at the wedding. And we made a photo booth out of it!

Since the couple had met over exchanging books

To make the presence of the books felt, 100’s of paper flowers adorned a tree in the center of the reception venue serving as a photo booth.

 Centerpieces

 Chennai Girl, Living in London misses her “ Goli" Soda Bottles and seeing women wearing the typical Checkered Chennai saree to beaches in the evening – we converted the  saree to a table runner and bottles to centerpieces for Typical Authentic South Indian Breakfast.

 These Book center pieces were for a couple whose story started over exchanging books and that how they fell in love. As cute as it may sound, including their love story into their wedding with old Leather covered books as a part of the center pieces.

The rope around the books signified a bond and post the wedding the books were donated to various orphanages and libraries.

Cake Toppers

Helena and Amit, wanted to make their wedding cake special and wanted to take back a piece of India for their Reception in Spain, we created this Edible wedding Cake Topper for them, with a shelf life 6 months, which they reused in their reception in Spain after getting married in Udaipur.

Have you been obsessed with Minions too ?  Is quirk your thing ?

This was a risk we took and it came out as the most beautiful surprise, the Telugu Bride marrying a Sikh Guy, loved the minion and wanted it incorporated somewhere, we gave the minion a name and got it a turban.

You said yes & you have the ring! Well it’s now time to plan a fling

You said yes & you have the ring! Well it’s now time to plan a fling with your girls, before turning the page to the happily married chapter of your life!

With all the wedding expenses doing the rounds, a bachelorette in some exotic location seems off the radar? Then you definitely got to hear Goa Calling!! Here are quick tips straight from the land of sun and sea!

When to travel? 

Goa is humid all year round however; the monsoons from June to October and winters from November to February are a slight respite during the day, the evenings are however pleasant and cool! If you choose the latter option then you may want to make your reservations ahead of time, as that happens to be the peak season for travelers heading to Goa.

Where to stay & how to get around? 

If you want to be in close proximity to the party scenes in Goa, then north Goa is the place to be. The most popular clubs are nestled along the Candolim – Calangute stretch with SinQ, Cohiba, and Titos being most popular among the party crowd. If a quaint bachelorette is on your agenda then you might want to make your reservation at some of the amazing hotels or private villas along the South Goa coastline. The beaches on this end of Goa such as Utorda, Benaulim, Varca are less crowded and more ideal for water sports or to go skinny dipping with your girls! Or you could have best of both worlds by staying in the south and heading up north for a girls night out!

The public transport in Goa is basically government/privately run and is far from being the most comfortable means of getting around and is pretty time consuming too. Taxis in Goa are operated by Local taxi drivers and are a better option to get up and about (Ola & Uber does not operate in Goa). The management of your villa/hotel can get one arranged for you. You could also hop on a two wheeler (most popular) or a four wheeler and explore the lush green villages, the colorful local markets, hit the beautiful beaches and so much more. The locals are pretty well versed with their English and most also speak good Hindi (thanks to the multiple daily soaps that are a hit around here) and are always happy to guide with directions.

If at all you find yourself at a dead end, there’s always a Google map to the rescue! 

Some offbeat Goa things!

Take the entire Goa experience a notch higher by spending the day on a private yatch/ catamaran. The prices are pretty reasonable and won’t have you end up with a hole in your pocket. You could also set the dice rolling with night out at the casino. Goa has multiple options you could choose from. Some hotels can help you get through both the options with either a disount or an upgrade. Check with your front office team before making a reservation.

Where and what to eat?

Goa is a paradise for sea food lover’s right from the butter garlic shrimp to fresh seafood cooked in goan spices or the humble Goan thali.  Restaurants in Goa also do an amazing job at Continental, Indo Chinese, Thai, Greek, Italian North/South Indian cuisine etc.

 Fret not vegetarians we’ve got you covered too! Zomato & reviews from local people in Goa can help you make the right choices depending on the cuisine your taste buds crave.

Shopping on your mind?

Shopping in Goa fits every budget category and is pretty well equipped with designer stores, local markets and the most popular night markets and flea markets.

The Panjim, Margao, Mapusa local markets can help you stock up on some nuts, dry fruits, spices, liquor, wines etc. While the flea markets are a vibrant display of clothes, souvenirs, home décor, foot wear, silver/junk jewellery, colourful bags and everything boho. The flea market in Anjuna is set up every Wednesday and the night markets are up every Saturday from around October to April. You might want to hone your bargaining skills as a little bargaining can go a long way in cracking some amazing deals with the vendors. Well, these markets do a lot more than pleasing the shopaholic in you, by being a happy place for foodies and music lovers. Treat yourself amazing global food and live performances by musicians of all genres! Most of these markets are also close to the clubs/party places up north so you can go from shopaholic to dancing diva in a single night.

Pack those bags with some sun tan lotion, comfy attire for hopping around, pretty party wear for the night and head to the land of sun, sand, surf, seafood and a truckload of fun 

Oh! And don’t forget your favorite girls!