The French coined the term canapé back in the 18th century. Canapé comes from the French for couch or sofa as traditionally canapés had a base of bread with a savoury topping of some kind.
Over the years canapés evolved with the word being used to describe small bite-sized morsels both savoury and sweet. They are now a popular addition to many functions including weddings. There are many options for serving canapés and depends completely on your wedding day.
If the service and reception are taking place in the one location then we find many people serve the canapés whilst the photographs are being taken. This relives the boredom for those that are not in many photos and enables your guests to mingle and chat.
If your reception is in a separate location canapés can be served on arrival of your guests to the second venue. This works especially well if you are having a greeting line as it can take a while to greet all guests and those first through the door won’t have much to do. In addition, you may have additional photographs taken at the second venue and once again it keeps your guests occupied.
Depending on the time of your wedding it may have been a while since your guests last ate anything. Canapés will be a hugely welcomed by those guests that didn’t get time to eat before your wedding and ensures they are not fainting from hunger until your wedding breakfast.
As well as serving canapés as a pre-cursor to the main wedding breakfast we are seeing some couples opting of for a canapé only wedding, or serving canapés as the evening buffet. It’s really worth thinking about the feel you want for your day.
The perfect canapé menu will fit with your wedding and be a dichotomy of flavours, colours and textures with something to suit everyone. A good tip is to serve sweet canapés in the last 30 minutes of the canapé section to highlight that part of your wedding is drawing to a close.
The number of canapés to serve per person really depends on what is to follow and what time of day you are getting married. It is worth It is worth sitting down with your caterer to discuss all the factors of your wedding food to ensure that your canapés are absolutely perfect, just as they should be on your special day.
