Photo by Sarah Chianese. 
Ask anyone, and they will likely tell you that cocktail hour is their favorite food element at a wedding. This preference is all the more reason why extended cocktail hour weddings are trending now more than ever! When speaking with their caterer, one of the most challenging moments for a couple is deciding which hors d’oeuvres to choose. With an extended cocktail menu, depending on the duration of your wedding, you can select five options per hour, leaving you with plenty of delectable choices. Grazing tables are also trending heavily, an excellent choice for incorporating into the cocktail hour wedding. Selecting a caterer proficient in creating a beautifully displayed grazing table will offer the wedding guests the “wow!” factor while providing them with scrumptious choices to complement the cocktails they consume.
What else is trending? Global flavors, by a landslide. With Gen Z couples accounting for the most diverse group of couples in history, there’s great demand for representing their various backgrounds — and there is no better way to do so than through food, music, and decor. An extended cocktail menu for their wedding allows them to offer every flavor profile they desire. And an extended cocktail menu also allows satisfies yet another trend: creatively honoring the diverse dietary restrictions of their guests so that everyone leaves the wedding thrilled and talking about how glorious the food was for years to come.
Continue the mood and offer an extended dessert menu in sweet amuse-bouche style.
Photo by Sarah Chianese. 
Discuss your ideas with your wedding planner, caterer, and designer so they can collaborate on an extended cocktail wedding menu that fits the wedding theme. From stationary grazing tables to stations divided by global flavors or street-food style — or perhaps you create food elements to match the mood of each section of the wedding — there are endless choices to offer a surprise and delight each hour of your wedding.
Think of the possibilities that a set-up of mini-cart displays can offer, allowing guests to pull up to each station to experience whatever spin each cart holds. You can even request that the service team dress up in a theme befitting the style of food you represent at each cocktail station. Traditional wedding cakes, as lovely as they are, are not trending as heavily as themed-out, large dessert displays. Why not continue the mood and offer an extended dessert menu in sweet amuse-bouche style?
Even your late-night snack send-off can be a fun take-home box of cocktail menu items you and your caterer can brainstorm to encapsulate the unionization of your joyful nuptials. Get creative and secure a fantastic team of wedding professionals who will make your extended cocktail menu wedding bring everyone the happiness you desire and a happy wedding! Sarah Chianese, owner of Mangia and Enjoy! is an award-winning and nationally recognized chef based out of the Hudson Valley, NY, as well as Colorado, and is a wedding industry expert who speaks all around the country on wedding trends.
