I'm sorry, some of these pictures are mixed up as to the order of events. Blogger likes to mix them all up when I load them on here, then I've gotta try to go through and organize them. Sometimes I get them all perfect, other times...
We were asked to cater another wedding meal. Of course, we asked Gavins to help us. In this picture, we met the Sunday before the wedding to practice making the salad for the meal. Dad wanted to see how many portions we could get out of one batch so that he'd know how much to make, etc.
Traveling with this crazy crowd is so much fun!
As soon as we arrived at the church where the wedding and reception were being held, we got right to work cutting, chopping, organizing.
It is a tradition in the groom's family to make these little cheese, sausage and olive hors d'oeuvres. We spent a couple hours cutting the cheese and sausage, then assembling them. (more pictures farther down)
Bridal table
Guest table
Washing and drying 88 bowls and platters... 😁
Cutting cheese for the hors d'oeuvres
Ellen and AnnaLisa helped us for awhile. They were a big help!
We made 700+ of these little guys.
I loved their masculine, but elegant and sophisticated decor.
Brie obviously isn't enjoying sorting the kale!
The kale was for the hors d'oeuvres.
Filling roasters to check roaster temps...
They wanted the same mashed potatoes as Jared and Danae had at their wedding. So, Daddy ordered some from Sysco and we brought them out with us. Prepackaged, real mashed potatoes are so much easier than having to make them by hand!
Brie and I cut the packages open while Abi and Aunt Carol squeezed them out. Grace scraped the rest out with a spatula.
These are the best mashed potatoes ever!
We finished all the prep work we could on Friday and were able to go to our hotel early and relax before the big day. We were up bright and early Saturday morning, arriving at the church by 7:30. Mom got us all Casey's breakfast pizza, a must have when we cater!
The calm before the storm...
Cutting lettuce for the salad...
We decided our kitchen deserved a name and motto-
G&G's Cannibalistic Kitchen
Where heads roll, hearts are broken, and eyes are skewered
Of course, all of that is referring to the olives and the heads and hearts of lettuce. 😂
Meanwhile, in a back room off the kitchen, Sam and Anthony spread a bed of kale on small plates while Mom, Grace, and I arranged the hors d'oeuvres on top.
Once I finished my job, I went to help cut lettuce.
Lots of lettuce!
Filling water pitchers
44 baskets for dinner rolls
Arranging the water pitchers for easy access for the servers...
Abi browned a lot of butter for the mashed potatoes
We had been told that the dessert was cheesecake. So, Dad thought it would be fine if we cut and plated the dessert up early as cheesecake needs to thaw out after it's been frozen. Unfortunately, it wasn't real cheesecake, but some kind of frozen cream cheese dessert. We didn't find that out till after we'd plated it all and it started to melt... 😁😳
Garnish for the dessert
Around 11 we started dishing up the mashed potatoes, covering each bowl with cling wrap and foil. Did I mention this was supposed to be a family style reception? That means we had to dish up food for each individual table, then the servers carried it out. It's definitely not our favorite style to serve, but we make do. 😄
Dishing up the grilled chicken
We had two full hot boxes of 66 bowls of chicken and mashed potatoes, waiting for the call to serve.
T.J. placed all the little cups of white BBQ sauce for the chicken on the tables.
More kale! Sam and Anthony hated that job by the time they were done.
My parents are wonderful! 😍
44 baskets of dinner rolls...
We had to count how many bowls full of lettuce were in a tub, so Ben and I used both our hands since we needed more than ten fingers. 😜
Brie's so cute!
Beautiful! That is, until it melted. 😖
Aunt Carol and Mom placed all the hors d'oeuvres plates on the tables.
"Sisters, sisters..." ♬
These pictures were supposed to be up there with the other dishing up pictures. 😬
The green glove crew... The boys got their hands burned the last wedding we did. Dad got them heat proof rubber gloves this time around.
This salad recipe was so yummy!
Dad decided the chicken platters needed filled more, so, out they came to be checked over.
Josh was their iced coffee guy.
Our excitement rose as more and more people were seated. The chaos wouldn't begin until after the bridal table servers served the bridal party.
The guest table servers waited outside for their cue...
Here come the bridal table servers! Let the fun begin!
Ben set his phone up to take a time lapse of us serving lunch.
We don't have any pictures of us serving as we were too busy to take any. Basically, we had to whisk out a platter of chicken and a bowl of mashed potatoes from the hot box, drizzle browned butter on the potatoes and sprinkle parsley on the chicken, then put it out in the window for the servers to take.
This was the dessert round...
I made the coffee and handed the carafes out to the servers after they'd served the desserts. I love front of the house service!
Lots of dirty dishes! We were so thankful that they arranged to have a couple other families clean the kitchen for us afterwards.
Lunch never tasted so good!
We snarfed down as much as we could before getting called away again. I think I only got a couple bites in. 😋
Relaxing...
There were a lot more leftovers at this wedding than the last one we did. The last one we barely got anything to eat as people came back for seconds. We had plenty to eat at this wedding!
Little Gabrielle Garza was so cute!
KK took a bag of trash out to the dumpster. The bag of trash had coffee grounds in it that leaked out onto him. Mom helped him clean up, but we couldn't help teasing him that he'd had a blow out. Then, Dad told him that he'd get his car seat all dirty... We ran with that, of course, and teased him about being a baby. 😂
Joshua and Abigail
Photo credits for the next 4 pictures: Shawn Zook
This was their guest registry... Such a neat idea!
I was kinda sad that I never even got to go out and look at the guest registry and picture tables... Actually, I was only able to visit with one person outside the kitchen besides the people that came into the kitchen. But, hey, I had fun anyway and I'm so glad we were able to serve Josh and Abby! I'd do it again anytime!
We stopped at a store along the way home that evening and KK decided to grease his boots right in the parking lot. Goof.
So ends our fun, but chaotic catering trip.
