Scott and Stacy Moak are classic foodies. They love to try new restaurants, and they plan their vacations around dining. So it stands to reason that when they got married in July 2007, food played a starring role in the festivities.

“Food is very important to us,” says Scott, the public address announcer for the Sacramento Kings. “We wanted the food at our reception to capture who we are,” chimes in Stacy.

They thought it would be fun to feature some of their favorite foods, which include bacon (hers) and mac ’n’ cheese (his). So during cocktails, the caterer passed trays of mini-BLTs and tiny ramekins filled with pasta gratin. Dinner, served family style, was fillet of beef with Cabernet demi-glace, prosciutto-stuffed chicken with vodka tomato sauce, and wild-mushroom ravioli with Marsala cream sauce. At the end of the evening, they brought out chocolate chip cookies and Rice Krispies treats, along with individual cartons of milk (straws included, of course). Their guests were wowed. Recalls Stacy, “The food was the high point of the whole wedding.”

Changing Tastes
The Moaks are typical of today’s food-obsessed bridal couples. Weaned on the Food Network and “Top Chef,” this generation of brides and grooms is saying no to the wedding banquet of old, with its rubber chicken and standard-issue steak. Instead, they want to proclaim their good taste while dazzling their guests with food that has personality and pizzazz.

“Food is huge,” says Sacramento wedding planner Laurie Schmalzel, owner of Laurie Schmalzel Events. “For some couples, you’d think it was the Last Supper.”

In the past few years, longtime local caterer Monty Montgomery has noticed a sea change in bridal couples’ attitudes toward food. “They used to say, ‘It’s wedding food. What do you expect?’” explains Montgomery, co-owner of All Seasons All Reasons Fine Catering in Sacramento. “Food is more important now. Couples are more discerning.”

He chalks that up to the fact that many couples are better traveled and more sophisticated. They shop at farmers markets, cook up a storm at home and eat out often. In short, they know what great food tastes like. Why should they settle for anything less on their big day?

“People’s palates have changed,” agrees caterer Beth Sogaard, owner of Beth Sogaard Catering in Plymouth. Foods that once were considered “exotic”—things like beets and goat cheese—are now mainstream, she notes.

According to Sogaard, today’s bridal couples want the food at their wedding to make a statement. Caterers are responding with interesting ingredients, creative preparations and exciting presentations.

One thing’s for sure: The one-size-fits-all menu is out.

Bridal Fusion Cuisine
Nowadays, many couples opt for menus that reflect the cultural or ethnic heritage of both bride and groom. “We’re doing more ethnic food,” notes Yvette Woolston, co-owner of Sacramento’s The Supper Club, who says the trend is to marry the couple’s family-of-origin food traditions. Call it bridal fusion cuisine. For an Italian-Persian wedding in Tiburon, Woolston and her husband, Matt, served pasta with asparagus and bresaola crisps, Kobe spiedini stuffed with Asiago cheese, and tiramisu in a nod to the Italian side of the family, and flatbread with onion sumac, sweet jeweled rice and almond saffron candy for the Persian contingent. “You can use food to introduce the bride and groom to the other side of their new family,” Woolston explains.
Seasonal, Organic, Local: Today’s Bridal Cuisine Buzzwords
In addition to ethnic foods, growing numbers of bridal couples are interested in serving seasonal, organic, locally produced, humanely raised, sustainably grown food. Grass-fed beef is a biggie with this crowd; so are heirloom vegetables.

Sacramento caterer Patrick Mulvaney, owner of Culinary Specialists, has long been a big proponent of such “farm-centric” cuisine. When he meets with bridal couples, he says, “there’s less eye rolling when I go into that stuff now.” In fact, many insist on serving their guests the same locally produced Ray Yeung tomatoes, Bledsoe pork, Apollo Barouni extra-virgin olive oil and Old Soul coffee that Mulvaney uses at his popular midtown restaurant, Mulvaney’s Building & Loan.

Mulvaney will prepare a sample tasting for a bride and groom but cautions that the actual menu will depend on what’s fresh and seasonal when the wedding date rolls around. “We don’t serve the same menu in March as in October,” he says.

Expert Presentation
Over the years, wedding food has gotten a bad rap for being boring and unadventurous. One way to set it apart, experts say, is through presentation. Schmalzel recommends food stations that allow you to serve an interesting variety of foods: say, a carved-meat station, a Mexican station, a Thai station, a salad station and an “action” station, where a chef makes sushi, grills pizza or tosses pasta to order. Some caterers will set up a mashed potato bar, so guests can add their favorite toppings to a martini glass filled with puréed spuds.

Clever appetizers are another way to jazz up the traditional wedding menu. “Hors d’oeuvres are huge with foodies,” says Bobbin Cherrington, director of catering at Culinary Specialists. For fun, she and Mulvaney will serve spicy Thai firecracker noodles in small Chinese takeout boxes, or roll sliced ginger beef on chopsticks. “We call it ‘Chopsticks for Dummies,’” Cherrington laughs. Another popular hors d’oeuvre from the Mulvaney oeuvre: mini eggs Benedict, made with quail eggs and chipotle hollandaise on tiny, housemade English muffins.

For one foodie bride, Montgomery and his partner, Joshua Garcia, pulled out all the stops for the soup course. At the autumn wedding, held at a vineyard in Clarksburg, they served pumpkin soup from massive, hollowed-out Big Mac pumpkins decorated with grapevines. For added drama, waiters rolled the gigantic gourds out on carts and ladled the steaming soup, tableside, into tiny Sugar Pie pumpkins that served as individual soup bowls. With the soup, they served savory crackers in the shape of oak leaves, made by a local baker. “It was spectacular,” says Montgomery.

The Fine Line Between Foodie and Freaky
But while foodies like to make a splash, they don’t necessarily want the food to be so complicated or exotic that it turns nonfoodie guests off. Rare are the bride and groom who request foie gras or a 10-course tasting menu. Rather, most brides and grooms want to make their guests feel comfortable and cared for. And they don’t want to pay big bucks for food that many guests won’t touch.

“The more unusual the food, the more likely Grandma will leave hungry,” says Schmalzel, who cautions couples to keep their guests’ dining preferences in mind when planning the menu. 

Dalene Bartholomew and Susan Essaf did just that when they married in 2007. They held two receptions: a casual barbecue for family at which they served chicken wings and beer, and a glamorous dinner for their foodie friends, catered by The Supper Club, where they served ostrich gyoza, spicy ahi tuna in sesame cones, house-cured salmon with navel orange confit, and roasted beet and chèvre crêpes with a ginger emulsion. “It wasn’t your typical wedding food,” says Bartholomew, an Arden Park resident. “People were utterly amazed at how wonderful it was.”

Don’t Forget the Drinks
Because food and wine typically go hand-in-hand, wine is an important component of today’s weddings. Frequently, foodies choose to get married at a vineyard rather than a hotel, says Sogaard, who caters a lot of weddings at foothill wineries. That makes it easy to choose the wines: Couples can serve the wines of the host winery.

In addition to wine, Woolston suggests serving a “signature cocktail”—say, a pomegranate martini or Meyer lemon drop. It’s festive and sets the tone for the rest of the event. For a casual, outdoor summer wedding, she’ll set up a snow cone machine and make alcoholic slushies. “It puts everyone in a party mood,” she says.

Clever Cost Savers
For foodies planning a wedding, cost can be a concern. But it doesn’t have to be, says Montgomery. To keep costs down, he advises couples to limit the number of interactive stations, where chefs prepare foods to order, because of labor costs. And he tells them to steer clear of “over-the-top” foods like caviar in favor of something simple, like grilled pizzas.

The Ultimate Foodie Wedding
The ultimate foodie wedding is set to take place this October, when Mulvaney marries Cherrington. They’ll hold the reception at Mulvaney’s restaurant, and their guests will include some of the region’s top chefs, farmers, food suppliers and other food people. Mulvaney’s staff is preparing some of the food, including gazpacho “shooters” and quail eggs Benedict. The couple’s foodie friends are making the rest—a whole roast pig, cupcakes and fruit pies for dessert—as their gift to the couple. “All our friends are cooks,” says Cherrington. Adds Mulvaney: “Cooking is how they show their love.”

A Foodie Menu
The Supper Club created this Low Country menu for a southern bride and groom.

Pass-Around Appetizers
• Masa cakes with goat cheese and poblano chilies
• Scallop gazpacho shooters with tomatillo-avocado-mescal salsa
• Deviled eggs with smoked paprika and capers

Seafood Station
• Crab dip with russet kettle chips
• Chilled tail-on prawns poached in court bouillon
• Frogmore stew with smoked pork sausage and seafood
• Fried green tomatoes topped with pan-fried catfish and Southern artichoke relish

Entrée Station
• Southern fried chicken and bird-head buttermilk biscuits
• Blackened steak salad with dirty rice, peppers, onions and tomatoes
• Roast pig with pear Vidalia chutney

Salad Station
• Southern potato salad
• Grilled grits with smoked tomato garlic gravy
• Ambrosia salad with arugula, basil, citrus and cucumber
• Succotash with sweet corn, lima beans, sweet peppers and green beans
• Pickled okra, watermelon rind, Jerusalem artichokes and scallions

Dessert Station
• Chocolate fountain with ripe strawberries, fresh pineapple, frozen bananas and mini ice cream cones