Wedding Cakes, Dessert Tables, and Late Night Snacks: Ending the Night Right

Dessert is the last thing your guests taste and one of the last things they remember, which is a strange amount of pressure to put on a cake. The good news is that the rules have relaxed enormously, and most of what couples now do is both cheaper and more popular than the traditional version.

Planning your dessert? Call (585) 352-3300 or contact us to talk it through.

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The Traditional Cake, Honestly Assessed

A tiered wedding cake is beautiful, it photographs well, and the cutting is a genuine moment. It is also expensive per serving, and at a great many weddings a significant portion goes home uneaten.

Plenty of couples still want one, and they should have one. The trick most have landed on is a smaller display cake for the cutting, with the actual serving handled another way. You get the photograph and the tradition without paying tiered-cake prices for 220 servings.

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What Couples Are Choosing Instead

• Dessert tables. An assortment lets guests pick, which means more of it actually gets eaten. Cookies, bars, tarts, mini pastries.
• Family recipes. Around Rochester and in Italian and Polish families especially, a cookie table is its own tradition and often the most talked-about thing at the reception.
• Interactive stations. Something assembled to order gives guests a reason to get up and mingle between dinner and dancing.
• A single signature dessert done exceptionally well, plated and served.

"I especially loved the chicken cutlets and twice baked potatoes!" - Nancy S

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Late Night Snacks Are the Real Win

If you take one thing from this: a late night snack around 10 or 10:30 is consistently among the highest impact, lowest cost decisions couples make.

By that point guests have been drinking for hours and dinner is a distant memory. Something warm and simple arriving at that moment gets a genuine reaction, brings people back from the parking lot, and keeps the dance floor going for another hour.

It does not need to be elaborate. Sliders, hot pretzels, a late pizza run from our own kitchen, or something regional. Because Chef's Catering is in house, a late night service is a simple addition rather than a second vendor and a second delivery. See the sample menus for a starting point.

Ask us what a late night snack adds. Get a quote.

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The Logistics People Forget

• Cutting and serving. If you bring an outside cake, ask who cuts and plates it and whether there is a fee.
• Storage before service. A buttercream cake sitting in a warm room for six hours is a problem. Ask where it waits.
• Delivery timing. Coordinate it with the venue, not just the baker.
• The top tier. If you are keeping it, assign a specific person to take it. Otherwise it gets thrown out.
• Allergies. Nuts and dairy hide in desserts more than anywhere else on a menu.

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Timing It Right

Cut the cake earlier than tradition suggests. Ten o'clock cake cutting means half your guests have left and the children are asleep. Cutting shortly after dinner keeps the room together for the moment, and then dessert is available while dancing runs.

Your designated event coordinator will build this into the timeline so the kitchen, the DJ, and the photographer are all expecting it at the same minute.

More on our weddings and receptions page.

Get in touch or call (585) 352-3300.