Om Nom Nom... the Tasting Party!

As soon as we signed the contract and put down the deposit for the Botanic Garden, we got an email from the Palm House's wedding coordinator inviting us to a tasting party! The Palm House has an in-house caterer, Charles Sally Charles, and instead of individual tastings for couples getting married there, they have a big party a few times a year. Even though it was a little bit early - since our wedding won't be for another year - both Mr. M and I never say no to a party. So we went, and brought Mr. M's mother along with us to enjoy the festivities!

The caterers had set up a full bar outside of the Palm House on the patio near the fountains, so Mr. M's mom and I picked up a few glasses of celebratory champagne - yum! Mr. M opted for a cocktail instead, and was very pleased - those bartenders know their stuff. We sipped our drinks and admired the scenery for a bit, then headed inside to begin the feast.

The caterers had arranged the room with food stations lining the walls - a Tuscan table with antipasti and yummy little vegetable tarts, a pasta station with some salads and different kinds of pasta, an artisanal cheese table, a crudite display and - be still my beating heart! - a fully stocked raw bar with different kinds of raw oysters and clams, huge jumbo shrimp, cracked crab legs and delectable chilled lobster tails. Heaven! We claimed a cocktail table near the kitchen and made sure to snag each one of the passed appetizers as they came by - a miniature Reuben sandwich, a chilled butternut squash soup in a shotglass, a teeny tiny crabcake. Yum to everything! Later in the evening, the waiters brought out miniature samples of a few entree selections. We tried the duck, which was really good, but missed out on the other entree.

The only slight disappointment of the evening was the cake selection - the catering package includes a cake, and Mr. M and I agreed that we would go with the venue's bakers rather than spend the extra money to hire one of our own. Though there were seven or eight flavor combinations available, we were only allowed to try three each - and the ones we tried were not as amazingly delicious as all of the other food we'd had that evening. The vanilla flavors were on the dry side, and the chocolate ones - while still pretty good - were underwhelming. Oh well... no one really eats cake at a wedding anyway, right?

We left a little bit tipsy and totally full of oysters and lobster, confident that we'd made the right choice in booking the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It's going to be a really beautiful - and really delicious - day!