Fall Wedding Dinner Menu for 85, with Quantities and Staffing

A wedding dinner for 85 is about the point where a home kitchen, a few good friends and a well-kept list stop being enough on their own, and where hiring at least some help becomes the sensible choice. This menu is built for a plated dinner in October, when the pears and squash are at their best and the evenings turn cold enough that people want something warm and generous on the plate. It works whether you hire a full crew or do the cooking yourself and hire servers. Either way, the planning is the same, and it starts with a menu that can mostly be made the day before.

The menu

Cocktail hour:

• New England cheese table with assorted breads, crackers, chutney and seasonal fruit
• Sun-dried tomato and basil tarts
• Quesadilla bites with roasted squash and pepper jack
• Scallop puffs
• Orange rosemary mini muffins with sliced duck breast and mango chutney
• Stuffed mushrooms

Dinner, plated:

• Salad of field greens, candied nuts, roasted pears filled with garlic ricotta, fig vinaigrette
• French and country breads with sweet butter on each table
• Main course choice: maple-glazed grilled salmon with autumn fruit chutney, or grilled chicken with plum and peach salsa
• Roasted autumn vegetables: butternut squash, potatoes, red onions, fennel, parsnips and beets
• Roasted green beans vinaigrette
• Persian-style wedding rice with saffron, orange peel, pistachios and almonds

Dessert:

• Lemon wedding cake with lemon buttercream
• Blueberry and raspberry sauces
• Coffee and tea

Why this menu works for a plated wedding

Plated service is kinder to guests and harder on the kitchen. The answer is to plate only what must be hot at the last moment and make everything else ahead. Here the salad is plated cold, the bread is already on the tables, and the vegetables, rice and green beans are all dishes that hold well for 30 to 45 minutes in a warm oven. Only the salmon and chicken are timed to the minute, and both are grilled earlier and finished in the oven.

The cocktail hour carries a lot of the meal. A big cheese table means guests are fed while photographs are taken, and the six passed bites cover something rich, something with seafood, something vegetarian and something a little unexpected (the duck on orange muffins is always the one people ask about).

Offering a choice of main course

Ask for the main course choice on the reply card, and put a small colored dot or a card at each place setting so servers know who gets what without asking. Expect a split close to half and half, and cook 5 percent extra of each. For 85 guests that usually means about 45 salmon and 45 chicken portions. Plan two or three vegetarian plates of the vegetables and rice with an extra pear and ricotta, and note them on the seating chart.

Quantities for 85

The cheese table works best with a range: a sharp aged cheddar, a soft bloomy rind, a blue, a washed rind or alpine style, and a fresh goat cheese. Buy whole wheels or big wedges and cut some ahead, leaving each one partly whole so it looks abundant.

The salad, in detail

Halve and core the pears, brush them with butter and a little maple syrup, and roast cut side up at 400°F (205°C) for 20 to 25 minutes until tender at the center but not collapsing. Cool them. Fill each hollow with a spoonful of ricotta beaten with roasted garlic. Make the fig vinaigrette by simmering chopped dried figs in balsamic vinegar until soft, then blending with mustard, shallot and olive oil. A plain maple vinaigrette is a lighter alternative if figs are hard to find. Plate the greens, set a pear on each, scatter the nuts and dress just before the plates go out. For a buffet-friendly version of the same flavors, see the greens with pears, Asiago and cashews.

Staffing for plated service

This is where I see the most mistakes. For a plated dinner of 85, plan roughly:

• 1 kitchen lead who runs the timeline and the plating line
• 2 or 3 cooks, one on the grill and oven, one or two on the line
• 5 or 6 servers, about one for every two tables of eight, plus one to pass during the cocktail hour
• 1 or 2 bartenders
• 2 people for washing and clearing, which nobody remembers to hire

With that crew, 85 plates can go out in two waves in about 12 minutes. With fewer servers, plan for a slower dinner and tell the band or the toasts to fill the gap. If you are weighing how much help to hire, the catering services guides lay out the options.

Timeline

Two days before:

• Make the chutneys, fig vinaigrette, candied nuts and berry sauces.
• Bake the muffins and freeze them. Make the tart shells.

The day before:

• Roast the pears and the vegetables (they reheat well).
• Make the ricotta filling, the stuffed mushrooms, and the quesadilla filling.
• Marinate the chicken. Make the maple glaze for the salmon.
• Trim the beans. Set up tables, linens and the cheese table frame.

The day of:

• Morning: grill-mark the salmon and chicken and chill them; assemble tarts and scallop puffs on sheet pans.
• 3 hours before dinner: set out cheeses to come to room temperature.
• 1 1/2 hours before: start the rice; bring vegetables to room temperature.
• Cocktail hour: bake and pass the bites in small batches.
• 30 minutes before seating: finish the salmon and chicken in a 375°F (190°C) oven until the chicken reaches 165°F (74°C) and the salmon just flakes at about 130°F (54°C) in the center. Reheat vegetables and beans.
• Seating: salads out, then mains as soon as salads are cleared.

Dessert and the end of the evening

The cake is cut in the kitchen after the ceremonial first slice, and plated with a spoonful of each berry sauce. Have one person cutting and one plating; 85 slices take about 20 minutes. Coffee goes out with the cake, along with a pitcher of cream on each table.

Cold food should not sit out longer than two hours, so the cheese table comes down when dinner is called, and any leftover cheese goes back into the cooler, wrapped, for the family the next morning.