Expert: Teri Davis Newman - 2/25/2009

Question
QUESTION: I am planning a dessert wedding reception. How do we figure how much to buy? It will be about 200 people. We want to serve a variety of desserts...and can't afford 200 pieces of cheesecake and 200 pieces of wedding cake etc.

ANSWER: You are planning a dessert wedding reception with ONE serving of dessert per person?  Am I reading this correctly?  ONE SERVING per person?  You are inviting 200 people and giving each of them ONE serving of dessert due to budget constraints?  I'm a wedding planner so I want to make sure I am reading this correctly in order to give you the best possible answer/advice.

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QUESTION: WE don't know how to go about this...that is the question.
What would be a good amount to plan on? We will have a choclate fountain and want cheesecakes,wedding cake,cookies and a special torte. Please give us advice on how to go about a dessert reception.We want it to be special and top notch YUMMY!

ANSWER: A dessert reception needs to be lavish and extravagant because you are not paying for a meal so the guests will talk about how cheap you are not to feed them dinner if you don't have a Knock 'em DEAD dessert display. I'm going to tell you what you need to do and promise me you will do EXACTLY what I tell you!  First, the chocolate fountain will cost you $400-$500 and UP to rent.  Go to Wal-mart.com and for $35 each BUY two of their chocolate fountains and set one up at each end and have your caterer keep both of them full. You can use them at parties forever and you will spend less than HALF of what the rental fountain will cost. They will be VERY popular so make sure you have tons of stuff to dip--strawberries, pineapple chunks, angel food cake slices, vanilla wafer cookies, oreos and marshmallows.  Keep the tray full of dippers at all times--they will go fast! You will need to have buy 16 plain Cheesecake factory cheescakes at Costco--they are beautifully pre-sliced and cheaper to buy than you can make them, they are sinfully cheap at about 10-11 per FOUR POUND CAKE. They are a STEAL!!! Set up a topping bar with sliced frozen strawberries, blueberry pie filling and cherry pie filling and let people top their own slice. Get your wedding cake at Wal-mart, it will be gorgeous and will cost about $100 to serve 90 people, so get two, one for the bride and one for the groom--one chocolate and one vanilla.  This is one of my trade secrets--DO NOT GET SUCKED INTO PAYING $1200 FOR A WEDDING CAKE!! One of my brides did this and wanted to die when I told her the wedding cake she thought was so gorgeous and delicious at my wedding was $78 from Wal-mart. Get your mom and grandmas to bake cookies for you.  Chocolate chip, peanut butter and oatmeal are the most popular and bake a LOT of them so that you can offer your guests a cookie 'doggie bag' to take with them, you will need 3 cookies per doggie bag (one of each) and another 400 of each to serve at the wedding.  While you are at Costco getting the cheesecakes, also buy 4 buckets of the mini cream puffs--they are drop dead delicious and make an impressive presention.  Obviously these desserts should be set out on beautiful plates and the table should be decorated beautifully. Go forth and eat sugar till you pass out and have a great wedding!

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QUESTION: Sounds Wonderful! Thanks!!!!

Answer
One more thing--invest in a really good coffeemaker and buy some really good coffee beans--Hawaiian Kona are awesome--and make your caterer grind the beans just before making coffe and have a coffee bar set up with half-and-half, Bailey's Irish Cream, Kahluha, Amaretto and Bushmill's Irish Whiskey along with real whipped cream for a lavish beverage bar to go with your dessert bar--and serve the coffee in pretty china cups--borrow all your family and friends' china!