Our caterers were amazing!

One more thing I just had a ball with at the wedding was working with our caterers. Straydog catering is run by a couple at our church who were referred to me by terrific word of mouth. I've known Renee since we were kids, she's younger than my little sister though so it wasn't like we hung out alot as kids but when you grow up in the same church family you have a lot in common and we have ALOT in common.

Renee is craftier than me. She used to work at Paperzone and she's my new favorite person to run ideas by. Gotta love that!

Ean and Renee sat down with me early in the planning to get a general feel for what I wanted. I'll have to say I had a couple ideas but I was stumped on how to make this day "work" we ended up after quite a discussion deciding we'd do a menu based on a ski chalet feel. easy food that you can eat with your hands but that is still nice and elegant. I had my one random request for cheese fondue which just was something that I really really wanted. Ean totally made it work. it was fantastic.

We had shrimp which was served in an all new way for me (IT WAS GORGEOUS!) he mixed cream cheese with the cocktail sauce then set the medium sized shrimp on top of the mixture and served it with wheat crackers. I know he'll forgive me for stealing that method, it looked amazing!

We had ham samiches which were based on a family tradition we have. Thanksgiving we had ham growing up and in the late afternoon my Papa would break out the leftover ham and make sandwiches on the leftover rolls with a slice of tillimook cheddar (mine always had a little mustard on it) That was so fun for me to put on the menu and I hope some of my family caught the inside tradition there!

We had classic swiss fondue, it was devine. It was served with little smokies and bread cubes.

We had meatballs, I'm not sure what sauce we ended up with, I think it was marinara, I knew better than to partake in that because if you know me you know, I would have worn that. ;)

We had baguette slices with salsa italiano (similar to a bruschetta) and a white bean dip (it was SO good) which looked particularly festive all red, green and white.

There were veggies and straydogs special dill dip.

The funny part is after all that planning, things were so crazy that Renee finally had to make me grab some food. I ended up getting a tiny bit of shrimp that was left, some fondue and a ham samich. But as you can see below, I couldn't shut up long enough to eat it. I think I ate half the sandwich and a couple bites of fondue but I missed out on the shrimp. For me the eater that was the ultimate tragedy on the day.
Renee tucked back behind me, with Cori and Keith grabbing a quick snack.
See, I can't shut up. Here I am talking to the two Keith's.
My mom made it through the line. that's good to know!

Here's Ean setting up the final touches (notice, NO GRODY YELLOW mustard) we had stoneground because it was what I wanted and after all it was my day. ;)
Part of the spread!
Special hugs and kisses to Ean and Renee and their team. The food was amazing and I got so many compliments after about how great it all was! Can't wait to work with you again! Oh wait! I already have.

I'll post on this at some point but the friday after the wedding was our holiday party at my office (which straydog catered) and that food I ate the heck out of. and it was amazing. ;)