Our Aruba Wedding

For our wedding dinner we chose the Marriott’s “International Four Corners Buffet“, the corners being the “Asian Wok”, “Mexican Fiesta”, “Caribbean Warmth” and “Middle Eastern Oasis”. We liked the idea of offering different types of food and loved that they would be willing to swap out one of the corners for Indian food. We chose to swap the Middle Eastern Oasis for the Indian food. They do not have any Indian food on their catering menu but told us they sometimes do Indian weddings and can cook it when they need to. We were a bit skeptical but figured at least there would be three other ‘corners’ if it didn’t turn out great. Ordering something not on the menu seemed like we would be asking for trouble.

Our menu would have Indian, Asian, Mexican and Caribbean. Then a week or two before the wedding, I’m taking another look and realizing there will be several people I know that may not eat any of the food on the menu! (There aren’t many adventurous eaters in my family.) So, at practically the last minute, we asked if we can swap one more corner for what we expected would be a boring but safe “American Corner”. They were very accommodating giving us two entrees, three salads, mashed potatoes and two deserts! (I think they were generous with the American Corner because the Indian corner would be all vegetarian and relatively inexpensive for them to prepare.)

We didn’t get to taste any of the food before the reception so we were just hoping for the best. Does anyone expect great food at a wedding reception anyway? We’ve had few (if any) remarkable meals at receptions, but were expecting the Marriott catering would be above average. We thought it might even be “good” (the menu sounded really different and pretty good). We weren’t prepared for the food to be outstanding! I just left a couple of friends who are still talking about the food saying it was among the best meals they’ve ever had!

My husband and I started with the Indian food and were blown away! It was so good! He had emailed them the list of what he would like to see on the menu and they did a fantastic job. We were afraid they would be too conservative on the spices but they packed some heat into it! We had a couple of people tell us it was some of the best Indian food they had ever had. We both also had some of the red snapper and plantains from the Caribbean Warmth and again – oh my god - so good. We have a 13 year old that ‘doesn’t like fish’ who went back for two servings! And those plantains are amazing. I can’t even describe them but had two helpings!

The “American Corner” ended up being anything but boring as it featured a Beef Tenderloin Carving Station with Chimichurri and Bernaise sauces. I have one guest in particular who’s favorite food is beef tenderloin but he’s super fussy about how it’s prepared and isn’t shy about telling you if its not right. Well I visited with him tonight and he was going on and on about that tenderloin! And this guy – another person that ‘doesn’t eat fish’ actually tried and raved about the red snapper too!

The Four Corners Buffet is surprisingly well priced for the amount of food you get. (I believe it was $60 per person as of October 2009.) Each ‘corner’ comes with salads and / or appetizers, an entree, at least one side and one or more deserts. There is so much food its almost embarrassing. The deserts alone were an impressive display that I wish I had a picture of – all kinds of cute little desert ‘bites’ and ’shots’. The only bad part is that I have yet to talk to anyone that really even got to the deserts because they were so stuffed by the food! As you can see in the picture, there are 6 tables of food set-up. The next morning when my husband and I woke up we were both just wishing we could get our leftovers! I believe the chef’s name is “Francisco” but I’ll have to check on that. (By the way – the lighting is one of our touches – I don’t believe the buffet comes with the lighting under the tables. This lighting was something my husband wanted. I thought might be kind of tacky, but I ended up loving it!)

Like the deserts, I also didn’t hear much on the cake – many people were just too full. They did a beautiful job with the decorating of the cake and we did get that one bite we fed each other when we cut it. The bottom tier was white cake with strawberry filling, the midde was chocolate with chocolate filling and the top tier was carrot cake with cream cheese filling. We had a bite of the bottom tier (white / strawberry) which was ‘ok’. I remember thinking it was a little dry and typical of many wedding cakes I’ve had. Someone did tell me the chocolate tier was really good and I never got around to trying the carrot cake which is what I really wanted. We also had way more cake than we needed so they were going to box up slices of left-over cake for the guests to take with them (would you believe they don’t charge for that?). Well they forgot about that and we also forgot. We had just talked about it but it was never listed in the “BEO” (banquet event order). Three days later we mentioned we wished we had tried the cake and they told us they still had the cake if we wanted it – that they always take the extra cake and put it in the freezer. We said no thanks, but now I do wish we had them get us a couple of pieces so I could know how good the other tiers were. I also wish we had thought to have a slice of each tier sent to our room to enjoy later (though they did have a really tasty surprise waiting for us in the room). 

Cocktail Hour and Drinks: We were so glad we kept the cocktail hour simple offering only drinks and some fruit and cheese. Initially we had planned on also passing three chilled hors d’oeuvres and had considered the crab claw display. At that time we had no idea how generous the buffet would be. We had scaled back purely for budget reasons. We also limited the cocktail hour bar to two ’signature cocktails’, beer, wine and non-alcoholic beverages to control cost and to help keep the party from getting too ‘colorful’ too early. I also hadn’t gotten around to picking out those signature cocktails so the Marriott improvised choosing one orange signature cocktail and one pink – our wedding colors.

The bar at the poolside for dinner and dancing was a full premium bar. And by the way – I’ve also received great comments from the guests about the staff – they loved the bartender and said the servers did a fantastic job, even cheering the the guests on when they were on the dance floor.

Reception Menu: Below is our menu. I’ve put an * by and bolded our favorite items, though hate to say that there are so many courses we didn’t even get to try (like the Mexican food) and most of the salads! I had printed menus which I mounted to bright pink card stock and had given these to the wedding planner. They coordinated with the rest of our materials, featuring the same pink and orange paisley border. The were placed at each guest seat and would help get the guests’ appetites going while they waited for us to make it to the reception (and do our dance, and cut the cake). 

There is only one thing we would change knowing what we know now. We had the dancing poolside, the buffet set-up on the lawn and the dinner tent in between. Two hours into dancing we wanted to surprise our guests with an ice cream sundae station which would have been perfect because it was so hot! Only thing is they set it up over where the rest of the buffet set-up was. We discussed this in the meeting and all thought that was the most logical place for it. Well, DJ Randolph was just doing too good a job rockin’ the party that people didn’t want to leave the dance floor, my husband and I included! At that point I would have loved an ice cream sundae but couldn’t tear myself away. So, if we were to do it again, the surprise ice cream sundae station would still come out at 9:30pm but it would be placed next to the bar! There, I know it would have been ravaged!

Buffet Menu: Below is our menu. I’ve put an * by and bolded our favorite items, though hate to say that there are so many courses we didn’t even get to try (like the Mexican food) and most of the salads! I had printed menus which I mounted to bright pink card stock and had given these to the wedding planner. They coordinated with the rest of our materials, featuring the same pink and orange paisley border. The were placed at each guest seat and would help get the guests’ appetites going while they waited for us to make it to the reception (and do our dance, and cut the cake).

International Four Corners Buffet

A taste of around the World

The American Corner
Potato Salad, Pineapple Cole Slaw Pasta Salad tossed with ranch dressing
USDA Beef Tenderloin* with chimichurri & sauce bernaice
Fried Chicken with Mashed Potato
Chocolate cake bites
Apple pie bites

Caribbean Warmth
Sweet potato & plantain salad with local basil & chili* (this was so good!)
Seafood ceviche marinated in fresh lime with sweet potato & crisp corn
Grilled fresh red snapper* served mango & papaya relish on fragrant couscous & salsa verde Caribbean fried plantains*
Avocado crème Brule with a Key lime & apple salsa
Freshly brewed coffee & specialty teas

Mexican Fiesta
Marinated Jicamica salad with cilantro & roast corn 
Avocado & shrimp ancho chili dressing
Sliced marinated chicken fajitas with sautéed peppers & onions
Soft flour tortillas
Traditional Mexican Toppings Bar Including Shredded Lettuce, Diced Tomatoes, Black Olives, Sour Cream, Shredded Cheese, Fresh Homemade Salsa, & Guacamole
Chocolate jalapeño tort with caramelized banana crisp

Indian Buffet
Appetizer: Pakoras*
Dal Makhani* (Lentil made in rich butter sauce)
Mattar Paneer (Peas and Cottage cheese curry)
Accompanied by Nans (plain and garlic) & Pulao Rice
Gulab Jamun
Freshly brewed coffee & specialty teas

We now have a menu for the Welcome Party we will have at the Marriott’s La Vista Restaurant. The manager has been a HUGE help. She worked with her catering staff to try to customize the menu to include some Indian appetizers since we will feature Mehndi and bhangra music. In the end, only one of the Indian inspired selections remains on the menu but I’m thinking the food looks pretty good!

• Curried pumpkin seed crusted shrimp with papaya relish
• Seared beef medallions with pineapple relish and red thai curry
• Tandoori Chicken Kabobs
• Spinach Puffs
• Fruit & Cheese Montage & a Tropical Fruit Display with Yogurt Honey Dip
• Tamarind Margaritas
• Non-Alcoholic Mango Margaritas

They are letting us use the bar / lounge area of the restaurant. The party will be a sort of meet and greet where guests will have a chance to say hello to us and get to know each other. La Vista is kind enough to let us play our own music as background music and will be making some special arrangements for our henna artist to work – in particular, they will provide extra lighting for her. We will also be meeting with the manager when we arrive in Aruba so she can tell us about some decorating ideas she has. Also, while we will only be paying for items on the list above, guests will be able to order whatever food and drinks they want off the regular La Vista menu. Took away some of the pressure of trying to please everyone.

Just today, our “Henna Hand” personalized chocolate bars arrived! Our henna artist is going to look into bringing some bangles and bindis we didn’t get around to ordering. And best of all, my fiancé’s family brought me a lehenga from Bombay and its beautiful! I know they put a lot of work into finding it for me and can’t wait to wear it.

Yesterday we had a pretty long and thorough conference call trying to wrap up the details. We’re getting close. One the agenda: menu, decorating, ceremony details, cocktail hour, lighting.

The Menu – We did decide to scale back on the cocktail hour a bit. Instead of the individual appetizers, we’re going with a couple of displays. The tropical display with the yogurt honey sauce and a fruit and cheese montage. We’ll also server a pre-determined amount of a festive ’signature cocktail’ (still to be determined), beer, and non-alcoholic beverages.

For dinner, We’re going with the Marriott’s Four Corners Buffet. The ‘corners’ are Asian, Middle Eastern, Aruban and Mexican. We decided early on that we wanted to substitute one of the corners for Indian. Problem is that all four of them look so good that we’re having a hard time deciding which to eliminate. To complicate things further, I finally realized how many ‘meat and potatoes’ guests I have that will be a little lost surrounded by so much ethnic food. So we’ve asked for an ‘American’ corner. We’re really happy that they are very accommodating with menu customization. While the American corner won’t be exotic like the others, at least I know my family will eat! (How strange that I crave all kinds of exotic food when I was raised in a family that could live on hamburger helper, mac and cheesa and pizza!) We are supposed to have our menu selections submitted by today, but they are being gracious enough to give us until Saturday.

The Cake and Ice Cream – Each of the buffet corners does have a desert with it so we won’t serve cake for a while. When we enter the reception we will get the formalities out of the way. They will introduce us, we’ll do our dance, we’ll cut the cake, do the champagne toast and then eat! Halfway through the reception, around 9:30-10pm (as guests are hopefully hot from dancing and getting a little hungry), we’ll be surprising the guests by bringing out an ice cream sundae station! We figure that’s when we’ll also serve the cake. The picture here is the one they are supposed to be creating. My groom is kind of funny sometimes. A two tier cake should be more than adequate to feed our guests. However even he agrees that it looks nicer as three tiers so he’s the one insisting on getting way more cake than we need because it ‘looks prettier’! Each tier will be a different flavor combination. There is no extra charge for that. The base will be white cake with strawberry filling, the middle will be chocolate cake with chocolate filling and the top will be carrot cake with a cream cheese filling. Keep in mind with cakes – forget about buttercreme frosting – they have to be fondant (assuming your reception will be outdoors). Anything other than fondant will totally melt in the heat. And all that extra cake? We’ll have them box it up and send the guests with an extra slice at the end of the night.

Cocktail Hour: As mentioned, we scaled back the appetizers, added tiki torches and have asked that some seating be available for the older guests.

Ceremony Details: I think we have an arch selected. I STILL can’t decide between a carpet runner or rose petals. I’ve seen really pretty rose petaled aisles where they are laid out in an ombre pattern, blending from one color to another. I like the idea of starting with dark pink to medium pink to orange. But with the wind, will the rose petals just blow away? And I kind of feel like there should be some sort of decoration, but can’t bring myself to spend much decorating what will be a 20 minute ceremony. So, the ceremony is pretty weak.

Lighting: the latest challenge. I wrote plenty in “Lighting – No floodlights Please“.

Other details: Once upon a time I was told we would see some sort of computer illustration of the layout of our event. Well, the most important area I want to see is the pool deck where the lounge will be. Guess what is not in their software? The pool deck. The lawn is but I have never been sent any sort of illustration. I wonder, how much space will the tables / canopy take? Where should the bar be placed? etc. So, I’m afraid that stuff will just be decided when we get there. That’s not all bad, but this ‘computer rendering’ I was excited about is a mystery to us. Does it really exist? I was hoping it would help me see just how much of the lawn the tables take up, help me figure out how many tiki torches I might want, visualize the flow of things better. At least we’re getting down there three days before the wedding.