I'm getting married at a hotel on a Saturday night. We're having a cocktail hour and sit-down dinner. I only want to serve cake for dessert, but my mom and future mother-in-law think we need to offer guests a dessert buffet. Is it okay if we only serve wedding cake with coffee?
-pamjen
Based on the style of your wedding and the fact that you have a cocktail hour, sit-down with courses, and a lot of menu options, you don't need to have anything more than the wedding cake. If you were just having a cocktail party reception with a few dishes and hors d'oeuvres, then it's the norm to have a few dessert options as a way to give guests great choices and a little more indulgence. But with a full dinner and cocktail hour, you're treating your guests to a lot, so you don't have to offer a ton of dessert options. Guests are usually stuffed after a wedding meal anyway, so it's okay to skip the lavish dessert spread.
It sounds like your parents are thinking about 'how it's done' and remembering other weddings they've attended in the past -- where the bride and groom provided an enormous collection of sweets at the Viennese table. The dessert spread was a must for a very long time, and now we're moving into an era where the meal is all-important and the desserts are narrowing down to just a great cake and maybe some chocolate-covered strawberries for variety. Dessert hour is slimming down, so to speak. So just let your parents know that it's more the trend now to just have cake, and that an elegant style of cake with great flavor and fillings is the best way to end the wedding on a great note.
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Sharon Naylor
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