Deliciously Green Menus

The perfect reception should have beautiful décor, fun entertainment, and delicious food! A tasty and nutritious meal will make your guests happy and energized to dance the night away. Planning a eco-chic menu that caters to the diverse tastes of your guests can be a challenge, so here are some tips to create a unique, delicious, and eco-chic menu.

Seasonal and Local

Hands down, the best way to green your menu is to incorporate fresh, seasonal, and locally grown items. Not only can you support local cooks, farmers, and businesses, but it is the best way to ensure that your ingredients will be as fresh as possible. Local vendors will most likely deliver from right  around the corner, and this avoids the need to ship items from far away.

Going Organic

When it comes to organic foods, the benefits of hormone and chemical free fruits, produce, meats, and fish definitely outweigh traditionally prepared foods. Serving your guests organic foods ensures they will be treated to top quality, healthy goods. Unfortunately, organic foods do tend to have come at a higher price because the cost of growing organic produce and livestock is greater. If your budget doesn’t allow for an entirely organic menu, pick and choose some organic items to feature. Maybe call on a local organic farm to provide fresh fruits for the cake or choose to serve organic chicken with your main course.

Something to Wash it Down

Buying local, seasonal, and organic can apply to beverage choices as well. Consider getting wine from a local vineyard that does the entire wine making process from grapes to glass on site. Seek out a local brewery for beer.  Many breweries create beers inspired by the tastes of the season so ask if they have a seasonal beer that incorporates and local ingredients. For non-alcoholic alternatives, make fresh iced tea or lemonade for guests. Providing pitchers of water garnished with fresh fruit eliminates the need for bottled water and makes for a beautiful addition to your table-top decorations.  

Waste Not

There are plenty of easy ways to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in the trash cans at the end of the wedding day. Use glass cups instead of plastic bottles, metal soda cans, and disposable plastic cups. Ask guests to do their best to reuse the glass throughout the night. Work together with your caterer to avoid using individually wrapped sugar and condiment packets. See if they can put condiments in plastic tubs and at the end of the night, you can wash them out and turn them into take home containers for leftovers.