Our cocktail reception had passed hors d’oeuvres, including General Tao’s chicken skewers, petite black Angus burgers with caramelized onions, seared filet magnon satay, and fish tacos with chipotle aioli and mango salsa, plus a raw bar. This gave us more of a happy hour feel at our wedding. I loved that Stonebridge had this cocktail hour reception option. We added a clam opening station which was a hit being that it was Good Friday. We wanted many seafood options for people who didn’t want to eat meat. For those who did, though, the Angus sliders were a huge hit!
I had beautiful flowers of ivory, burgundy, peach tones, and greenery. I wanted a lot of warm ambiance so we had many hurricane glasses with floating candles. Our uplighting was an amber color. It was absolutely stunning! Our DJ had everyone tearing up the dance floor all night. We added sparklers for dramatic effect. We probably didn’t need them but the second I saw them lit up and people cheering I thought it was all worth it. Lol!
Smaller portion dinners were passed around during “dinner hour.” Everyone got to try one of each which was unique. The stations we would’ve had during a typical wedding cocktail hour were moved into our reception room. Among the passed dishes were Chianti-braised short ribs, porcini-crusted chicken with truffle sauce, and pan-seared salmon filet with a ginger teriyaki sauce. We had several stations too, like our Mulberry Street station with Tuscan style steak, eggplant rollatini, and penne alla vodka; and a seafood bar with fried calamari and seafood scampi.