In the Torah, Genesis 18:2 talks about how Abraham welcomes strangers (who would turn out to be angels) into his tent and gives them food and drink. For their kindness to strangers, Abraham and Sarah are blessed. Modern translation: If you want to be blessed on your wedding day, make sure the people are fed.

So, let’s talk about food.

Our wedding menu is going to be a lot like in our home. I keep a version of kosher… no meat and dairy (although I am a vegetarian so not too hard), no shellfish, fast on certain Holy Days, and eat certain foods on others. Lisa maintains a higher protein, lower carb diet. She also loves her traditional polish kielbasa on Easter and Christmas. Our diets may seem worlds apart, but we always enjoy a meal together as often as we can.

When you first think of food at a wedding, you think wedding cake. We first thought against it. However, my mother asked us to get one for the reception. The reason being is that when my parents got married on their front lawn 30+ years ago, they had very little. The only thing they had was a Carvel ice cream cake. They even had to borrow the $10 to get that. It holds a special place in their hearts and to honor that we decided upon a small cake to cut. It’s one tier, simple design, almond flour base with apricot filling cake.

It is coming via the wonderful Tres Belle Cakes. Instantly, we fell in love with the place and their owner Tracy. The sweets are the best. They also do a nice lunch with salads and croissant sandwiches. We originally went there to meet with a photographer and now I am a regular for lunch. It is a fun place and when we went for our tasting it reminded us planning should be fun. We like it so much, we are actually having our rehearsal dinner there on Friday night.

For our main dessert, we went for a Cincinnati local favorite, Holtman’s Doughnuts. Wedding cake for everyone was a bit too traditional. Cupcakes at weddings are tired. Pies are messy. We knew we made the right decision when my dad, who is not much of a doughnut person, was in town visiting and proceeded to eat 2 doughnuts in the 10 minutes that it took to drive home from the shop.

Our main course catering was a much different situation. We are working on a budget and we considered some Cincinnati favorites of Indian or Skyline Chili. Both are reasonably priced, but we realized we actually would be serving something not a lot of people may eat. Lisa was quick to point out if we are tasked with providing a good meal for our guests, we should give them one.

This weekend we decided to give a small restaurant called Meatball Kitchen in the Short Vine neighborhood a try. They had catered a work event for a colleague and when I emailed them they came back with a quick response and great pricing. They do a fun and modern take on the meatball. We took a couple friends there this weekend and we all were blown away. I loved the veggie options, Lisa loved the pork option, and our friends loved the beef option. We ordered every side on the menu and we all enjoyed every single one of them.

It has felt like all our choices were a home cooked meal or something comforting that everyone loves but with an interesting twist that plays with our sensibilities. You could call it the perfect marriage.