Hi all,
I wanted to get some advice from this community. To try and accommodate the number of guests at our wedding, my fiancé and I are considering the etiquette of serving our guests different set menus at the reception.
For some background first, I am Chinese and my fiancé is Korean.
Given our different cultures, my fiancé and I had to choose whether our wedding would follow Western, Chinese, or Korean traditions.- Western weddings as we've observed, usually have the ceremony followed by punch and cake, while the reception is private with close friends and family.- Chinese weddings have a morning ceremony followed by a light lunch/refreshments, and there is a break before reconvening for a multi-course dinner banquet. The parents typically pay for the majority of the cost and as a result, they invite many of their friends. The presence of a whole abalone per person is an unwritten must for Chinese banquets, and I've noticed its absence is taken as an insult to the shame of the couple and their parents (don't get me started on how Chinese culture is dysfunctional). - Korean wedding ceremonies also take place in the morning, albeit the reception is a buffet/potluck lunch immediately after and everyone disperses from there. The parents also pay for the expenses and will invite virtually everyone they know and even those they don't to witness their children getting married, and also--to some extent--the abundance of Korean fare being served (don't get my fiancé started on Koreans also having an image to maintain).
My fiancé and I decided upon having our wedding in the afternoon, and setting out some refreshments out for those who are unable to attend our reception at a Chinese restaurant. As a courtesy to our parents, we offered to let them invite up to 20 friends per side to our wedding and reception (so an additional 40 people to the 90 friends we invited). My fiancé and I will be paying the majority of the wedding/reception costs, with my parents offering to help with some of it.
Given the cost per table at the Chinese restaurant, my fiancé raised the idea of serving different menus to our family and distinguished guests, vs coworkers and our parents' friends. I'm unsure if that would be rude or not though, even though I share her concerns about the cost.
The banquet menus are $1000, $1200, $1600, $1800 and $2500 per table of 10, with some variations between each menu.
My fiancé was thinking of the $1600 menu for the head table and our families, while the other tables would be served the $1000 menu; both menus have whole abalone albeit their size and some of the menus' other courses differed. If serving different courses is rude (because someone could look over and see another table had something different), the $1200 and $1600 menus were identical except for the abalone being sliced in the former and whole in the latter... but as Mushu said in Mulan, that would bring dishonor on my family, and dishonor on my cow. (We're Christian and don't personally care, but I know many of our parents' friends hold to those cultural biases and we don't want our families being ridiculed for life because we didn't serve a whole snail...)
What are your thoughts?
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