Through extensive research and canvassing, my husband then-fiance, Marc, and I determined that a garden reception was just a bit too pricey for us. Outdoor venues in Quezon City are just way too pricey. And the thing is, we wanted our wedding ceremony held at a church which held sentimental memories of my late grandma. That’s our main priority, so we just contended ourselves with an indoor reception.

The more popular outdoor venues include The Oasis (Quezon City), Gazebo Royale (Quezon City), SOLEA Garden (Quezon City), Blue Gardens (Quezon City), The Big Tent (Quezon City), Mango Farm (Antipolo), and MMLDC (Antipolo). If you have a bit of cash to throw around, you might want to check out these outdoor venues.

As I have said, I’m pretty fond of nature. If they weren’t far (not to mention expensive), I’d go for an outdoor venue out of town.

Reception at Fantasy World in Lemery, Batangas

Idyllic scenery at sunset (Fantasy World)

Frontage of The Oasis in Quezon City

Spacious outdoor venue of Fontana Leisure Park in Angeles City

A bridge leading to the Fontana outdoor venue

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I dunno how much it costs to reserve venues at Fontana Leisure Park and The Oasis (I’m not even sure if you need membership in order to have an event at Fontana), but you may inquire at Fantasy World through 02-8336566. Last year, the cost was Php50,000 for the first four hours of use, and Php10,000 per hour succeeding. See? I told you it was costly

The food servings given at events like these are only small portions—basically, just enough for you to have an idea of how their food tastes like. And because there are a lot of people going to these events, you won’t be able to see the actual table arrangements (they’ll show you photos of real weddings for those). Sometimes the caterers go all out on decorating their buffet tables (like Josiah’s Catering did on a bridal fair I attended), but there are also times when the setup is just simple (not the real thing in weddings, obviously).

The best thing to do in these events is to ask questions—a lot of them. The caterers’ sales representatives are usually scattered about in the venue, and they’ll make sure that you get the information you need (what’s the point of feeding you for free if they don’t have an opportunity to give you a sales pitch, right?). Ask them all the questions that you need to know about their service: food servings, table setup, stuff included in the packages, number of waiters, additional services, buffet setup, payment, etc. etc. Don’t worry, the sales representatives are used to answering a lot of questions. Their main objective is to get you reserve with them—it’s part of their job.

If it’s the first caterer you’ve ever tried, it’s better that you put off reservation until you’ve really canvassed and tried others. Take pictures so you’ll have a reminder of what food they served, then sit down with your groom-to-be to discuss which you liked best.

There are other caterers that don’t hold free food tasting events (the no-strings-attached events), and require you to give a down payment before you could even taste the food. Quality of food in such cases is very hard to determine, and you must really study their packages as well as presentation before making up your mind. It’s also advisable that you ask around—research on the net, or ask friends, colleagues, and relatives for feedback if they’ve already tried the service. If you’re totally lost (or don’t really have anybody to ask), you could try joining mailing lists for grooms and brides-to-be like the one they have on Weddings At Work and ask.

Catering will probably take up most of your budget (well, at least in ours it did), so it’s best to make sure that you really get the best (and at the most reasonable price) food for your guests.

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Hizon’s Catering will be hosting a food tasting event on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at the Mango Farm Special Events Venue, 22 Shield Street, Kingsville Court, Antipolo. You must be registered to join.

Robert Camba Catering, on the other hand, has free food tasting every weekend at their showroom (#12 Resthaven St., Baler, Quezon City). The showroom is a bit small, make sure to give them a call first to set an appointment (Phone: 371-1098 / 372-9755) so there won’t be any problems accommodating you.

I’m still waiting for Josiah’s Catering to send me their scheduled food tasting events (I think they have a number of them this year).

Happy planning and eating!

The best way for you to spice up the desserts you will serve your guests is to add some of these dessert alternatives. Some of them sound pretty expensive, but really, most aren’t—you just need to get the right supplier

Chocolate fountain / Chocolate fondue
Chocolate fountains are a common sight in wedding receptions nowadays. I can’t remember attending a single wedding where there isn’t a chocolate fountain or fondue served near the buffet table. Heck, my own wedding reception had a chocolate fountain.

Typically, suppliers use Belgian chocolate for the fountains (but the more cheaper ones don’t, and these non-Belgian chocolate fountain can cost as low as P3,000). They provide bowls of bite-sized fruits, marshmallows, bread sticks, cream puffs, wafer sticks and other pastries that could easily be dipped or coated with chocolate (sticks are used for soft dippings like fruit and marshmallows), all decoratively arranged around the chocolate fountain apparatus.

The best thing about chocolate fountains is that they provide a bit of grandeur to your buffet table. The flowing chocolate is just a sight to see. It’s not only attractive, but mouth-watering as well. I guess there’s just something about chocolate flowing on a fountain that people find attractive—I can still remember my guests crowding around the chocolate fountain at our wedding. Luckily, the waiters took it upon themselves to serve us the chocolate-coated delights, or we probably wouldn’t get a chance to taste it.

Dessert Bar
Another new dessert alternative I’ve been seeing is the Dessert Bar. Hizon’s Catering recently showed off theirs at a food-tasting event they had last March 18. Noemi and I will be sampling Josiah’s Catering’s Dessert Bar soon. Although the taste of their desserts will most likely be different, I’m guessing that the presentation would be quite similar.

So what’s a dessert bar, anyway? As the name implies, it’s a bar that has an assortment of different dessert delights: salads, mousses, crèmes, pastries, etc. Just looking at it from afar is already mouth-watering, so you can definitely be assured that adding such a dessert alternative can spruce up your reception buffet. Unlike the chocolate fountain, your guests need not crowd around it. All they’ll have to do is grab the dessert that they like.

Ice Cream Bar
The Ice Cream Bar is actually a dessert alternative that my husband and I seriously contemplated on having instead of the Chocolate fountain. We are both ice cream-lovers, but unfortunately, our reception venue wasn’t that big to accommodate the bar.

We first heard about this dessert buffet at a bridal fair where Fiorgelato showed off their ice creams. I remember the cost of the bar being around P7,000 (about $140) with I think around three or five (I can’t remember, sorry) flavors of ice cream served, which is practically the same as the chocolate fountain service. But then, that price range was a year ago (most likely they’ve already increased their rates, I’m not sure).

Crepe Bar
As the name suggests, the Crepe Bar is a dessert alternative that features different crepes. It’s kind of like the Dessert Bar, only this one has crepes instead of cupped desserts. Your guests can choose from a variety of fruits and sauces, and the attendant will prepare it for them. Normally, fruits are already pre-wrapped and all the attendant needs to is to add the cream and the sauce. That way, your guests won’t need to wait too long on the line at the Crepe Bar.

Halo-halo Bar
If you’re having a Filipiniana-themed wedding, a Halo-halo Bar is a great idea. I’ve already seen this more than once in restaurant buffets, but rarely on wedding receptions (probably because I haven’t been to a Filipiniana-themed wedding yet). Aside from the fact that this dessert alternative would best fit a themed wedding, you could never go wrong with your Filipino guests with this popular and very Filipino dessert!

Bibingka and Puto Bungbong
Here’s another great alternative dessert idea for a Filipiniana wedding. Puto Bungbong and Bibingka are all-time Filipino favorites—especially during the Christmas season—so these would be another sure hit with your Filipino guests. It’s not a very common dessert alternative; if you’re going for being “unique” I’d say you can’t go wrong with this. Having a Puto Bungbong and Bibingka stand on your wedding reception will definitely be an eye-catcher. Robert Camba Catering offers these Pinoy delicacies as part of their added service just in case you’d want to consider this alternative.

These are just some ideas you can use to spice up your wedding reception menu—be creative! Just don’t forget the other factors to consider before adding dessert alternatives such as these, factors like venue limitations. Some venues can be too small to accommodate additional tables or stands, and some don’t allow cooking within their premises (there goes the Bibingka and Puto Bungbong idea). In such cases, you can always just stick to whatever your caterer has on the menu if you really can’t think of any other alternative. Dessert isn’t the focus of your wedding reception after all

CREDITS: Chocolate fountain photo by Tri-Color Studio. Dessert Bar photo from Josiah’s Catering.

The seating arrangement for the wedding reception is one of the more important aspects of planning your wedding, especially when you’re inviting a lot of guests. Unless your wedding is a very intimate celebration (like, only 50 guests or less), it’s necessary for you to have at least a blue print of where guests will sit come the wedding reception. Why am I just talking about wedding receptions? Well, for the simple reason that there won’t be a need for socialization during ceremony itself (you wouldn’t want your guests to be talking amongst themselves while you take your vows, would you?). But during the wedding reception, there is.

Here are some tips on how to plan your wedding reception’s seating arrangement.

Create an alphabetized master list
Believe me, it’s not only about being compulsive, but creating an alphabetized master guest list really does help a lot. You can use a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel to automatically sort your guest’s names alphabetically. That way, guests can easily find their names and their table numbers at the entrance of your reception venue. It’s best to setup a reception table near the entrance, you can ask your friends or bridesmaids to man it for you (although sometimes there are wedding coordinators who already include this as part of their service).

Draw a table arrangement diagram
In order to do this, you must have a pretty good idea of your venue’s layout. It would be a better idea too to make this while getting your Head Waiter’s input. I actually did ours while I was at our caterer’s office. We were lucky; our caterer already had serviced another couple at our reception venue. That way, they were able to show us through a diagram where they will place the buffet table, the presidential tables, the guest tables, and the couple’s table (ours was situated in a gazebo). You don’t necessarily have to put each of the guests’ name on the diagram (what if they were over a hundred?!), but having an idea of how the table layout will be will help you in determining the placement of table numbers—thereby knowing where to seat your guests.

Say you have 150 guests—you’ll be needing about 15 tables, though your caterer will allot extra setups just in case—and you’ve already determined how these 15 tables will be laid out at the venue. Table 1 would be nearest the buffet table, table 15 being the farthest. With this in mind, you know that you should seat elder guests at Table 1 so they won’t find it difficult to get food. You’re not being discriminating by doing this, you’re just being accommodating

Mix and match
Here’s the trickiest part of seating arrangement: mixing and matching. It’s best to do at least a bit of “research” on your guests, so you’ll know where to seat them, and who to seat them with. You can group your guests by age group, or by common interest. That way, they’ll have something to talk about during your reception and won’t get bored.

Premeditate tensions
There are (and will always be) relatives who just can’t stand each other, and it would be a very bad idea seating them in one table. In a situation like this, it might be better if you enlist the help of your parents or an elder relative. What if there’s an age-old family feud you never knew about? You obviously can’t put warring relatives in the same table, or they’ll end up glaring at each other for the rest of the night (or worse, you might end up with an unplanned drama worthy of an Oscars in your reception program). Make sure to seat them in tables as far away from each other as possible.

Meet with your wedding coordinator about the list
Obviously, you will need to do this. I didn’t get a wedding coordinator/planner for my wedding, but I did enlist the help of my friends in coordinating our reception and ceremony. I turned the list over to them and explained what to do in possible scenarios (say, guests who didn’t confirm suddenly came). After that, I didn’t have to worry about the guest list anymore.

Expect the unexpected
You’ll most likely get a finalized list of attending guests about a week before your wedding day (ours was finalized two days before). Although caterers usually prepare for unexpected attendees, you yourself should take that into consideration when planning your seating arrangement.

Keep in mind that the guest list is just a guest list—it’s bound to change. You shouldn’t stress yourself about following it to the latter (what if somebody couldn’t come due to an emergency?). There are just so many things that could happen that you wouldn’t be able to control, so better to keep an open-mind instead of freaking out at the littlest thing. The most that you can do is be prepared

CREDITS: Photos by Tri-Color Studio and Vince Villamin. Diagram by Gail Dela Cruz-Villanueva.