Just imagine. You’re attending a formal wedding. The ceremony goes great. You walk into the reception. There are plated salads on the tables. The bride and groom come out for their first dance. The buffet opens. You walk into the other room with the food. You see a 12 foot table lined with pizzas. Pizza?? What?
That’s how I was afraid my guests would react when they saw we were having pizza. I was nervous it would look casual or like not much food. However, I had a really strong faith that it would work out perfectly and would be a huge hit.
There were several reasons I was set on pizza for our wedding, but the photo of the mirror sign pretty much sums it up.
1. Search for the Perfect Pizza Option
We decided to start looking at different pizza caterers and our options for having pizza at a wedding.
There are dozens of options when it comes to having pizza at a wedding. You can go the traditional route- papa johns, pizza inn, etc. We chose not to go this route, simply because we wanted the more artisanal pizza feel. While I think any pizza is good pizza, I do think the feel or theme of your wedding can help determine if corporate pizza is or isn’t the way to go for you.
We also looked at hiring out a pizza food truck, which I think would be amazing. Our wedding was in December though, so we were worried it would be too cold (jokes on us because it ended up being 75 degrees that day). We also worried about this because we were having about 150 people, and I was worried it would get backed up and become too slow. I didn’t look into it all the way, but I would just have to assume it would be better for a wedding of about 50? It’s worth asking about though.
Our favorite pizza ever is Hard Knox Pizzeria, but I wasn’t sure if they really catered weddings, how complete it would be if they did or what the price would look like. We decided to just reach out and see how it would work, what is the worst that could happen?
2. Ask all the Questions
This is important. Make sure you ask a lot of questions at your tasting meeting. This is important with any wedding catering tasting experience, but I feel it’s especially so for pizza. There are so many variables it seems like.
My wedding planner came to the tasting, and we were able to get answers to questions we didn’t even know we had. Make sure you ask what kind of silverware is provided (it was plastic for ours so we didn’t end up using it), what the drink situation is, if servers are included, what servers wear, what the pizza stands look like, decorating possibilities around the pizzas, how often pizzas will be restocked, how many types of pizza there are too choose from, how will it not run out and more!
I know, that’s a lot. Your caterer is there to answer your questions, so make sure you ask way! You would rather know before rather than later.
Obviously the most important question is the cost. We had a set price that included five variations of any of their pizzas, a meat and cheese board, two types of salad, plastic silverware and plates (we didn’t use), two different types of drinks (sweet and unsweet tea is what we chose), cups and servers.
We were completely wowed by the meat and cheese board. I wasn’t expecting anything over the top, but it ended up being one of the showstoppers! We also arranged for the salads to be plated instead of served buffet style, which I mainly did because I liked the way it looked on the table and it gave people something to do before we got into the room.
3. Select the Menu Carefully
With any wedding menu, it’s important to make sure there’s something for everyone. Everyone likes pizza, but these artisanal pizzas were a little less universal than your standard pepperoni and cheese so we wanted to be intentional about our selection.
Try to cover all your bases. Plain cheese (especially if kids are going to be in attendance!), some kind of meat lovers, a supreme and then your favorite signature pizza. It also might be nice to have a mix of red and white sauce pizzas, but that’s totally not necessary. We picked the barbed wire from Hard Knox, which has pulled pork, jalapeños, a white based sauce.
We also renamed the pizzas to evoke a wedding/love feeling- We had a meat “lovers,” “I DO BBQ,” “Love is Cheesy,” and “All the love (and toppings!)”
4. Enjoy!
A lot of our guests were so thrilled by the pizza. I think wedding food can be a total hit, but it often is a big miss. People get tired of the same mashed potatoes, chicken or pork, vegetable medley etc.
I think people were relieved it was easy to eat, wedding food doesn’t have to be complicated!
I hope you enjoyed this post and a little insight into why we chose pizza for our wedding!
