The absolute highlight of a French wedding is the celebratory dinner. Unsurprisingly, gastronomy is a defining factor for the French, and becomes even more important during the holidays. A wedding, it is safe to say, is one of the most celebrated of all holidays. What are the factors to pay particular attention to in order to satisfy French guests and family members.
1. Dinner time and schedule
Dinner in France usually starts at 8pm, which is a ruthlessly late time for Hungarian guests. Of course, compromises are always necessary, and the French may have to give a bit of an inch here, tending towards a slightly earlier start, but we certainly cannot offer dinner before 7pm for French guests. To help Hungarian guests who are used to the previous dinner stay comfortable for longer, the vin d’honneur is implemented in a more meaningful form. That way, guests can eat enough before the dinner starts to keep them from going hungry until the first course.
2. Give us a way!
The most important expectation about dinner is to give the meal a way to be eaten. Dinner is not about quickly satisfying your hunger. A special menu of quality and variety is the key to the French soul. This becomes even more important at the holidays, and it is also very important that these meals do not arrive in a conveyor belt, but with small breaks, “celebrating” each dish one by one. So the French celebratory dinner can often last 3-4 hours, which does not mean that it is a welcome event to follow at a multi-national wedding where there are a good number of other nationalities from other customary systems. However, it should always be borne in mind that the French have a very bad taste for “chopping” dishes in quick succession. Here too, it is worth striving for compromises.
“Our wedding wouldn’t have happened without you, so I can’t tell you how grateful we are. The many languages, the way we live our lives, has never for a minute caused you any problems, in fact, when I hear my husband praising you and your French, I always say to myself, that’s the goal! You have accompanied us on our journey with amazing kindness and flexibility, THANK YOU!” – Bianka & Quentin
3. But what to serve?
A classic French festive dinner is therefore definitely a dinner for the plate and usually consists of the following courses: a starter, 2 main courses: a fish course and a meat course, cheeses and dessert. The French don’t eat soup for dinner, but in an international menu it can be part of a crossover menu, i.e. a menu that combines different styles, customs and national traditions.
Coming back to the forms of serving, the great advantage of the plate service is elegance and aesthetics, since the food compositions themselves provide an aesthetic experience and the food itself becomes part of the decoration, even if only for the few moments it is on the table and not consumed. Of course, the gastronomic sophistication is also enhanced, with more colourful, detailed and varied dishes. However, it has the disadvantage of being a more expensive form of serving and can make the meal very long. The latter is not a problem for the French, but if there are other nationalities present who would like to eat at a faster pace, a different solution is needed.
The buffet style of dining is somewhat at odds with the French style described above, but it offers a lot of flexibility and choice in terms of food, is much more affordable and therefore a very popular way of serving.
The compromise is a combination of the two types of service, where the starter(s), soup – usually the first two courses – are served on a platter, giving the dinner a sense of grandeur, solemnity and the aesthetic experience of beautifully composed plates at the start of the meal, i.e. French style, but the other courses are served on a buffet.
4. Compulsory dishes?
Just as the Hungarians have a traditional and obligatory meat soup or stuffed cabbage at midnight, the French have some classics that are a must at a wedding. Among the starters, there are St. James’ mussels, lobster or foie gras, among the meat dishes, beef and duck, and of course, don’t forget the cheeses that are served after the main course, but also before dessert, which are an essential part of a French dinner. Among the desserts, of course, French pastry classics are the most common: macarons, fruity tartelette-ek, tarte au citron, crème brűlée and the list goes on. The crowning glory of the dinner is the wedding cake, the pièce-montée, which is far from the classic international cake standard, but can be a special moment in the evening, either on its own or as an accompaniment to the bride’s cake.
+1 When to decide on the form of the dinner?
It is very important to determine at the very beginning of the wedding planning process what time, what kind of service, what kind of dishes (Hungarian, French, international) we want to have, how much we are willing to compromise and flexible and whether there are any factors that are essential for us. When looking for a venue, this is as important a factor as the expected number of guests, expected style, etc. Not all locations work with all forms of service and there are local specificities that are incompatible with certain expectations and customs. We know of some wedding venues that do not take breaks between courses, but only operate a continuous service. However, if it is important for the international guests to be able to add some programme elements, speeches or surprises during the dinner, this may be a reason to exclude it, or at least a compromise to consider.
I hope these tricks will help you to make your wedding truly French, wherever your special day shines! If you want more tips and a professional helping hand with the organisation, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Request a free consultation and let’s see together where you are stuck and what I can do to help you have the perfect French-Hungarian wedding!
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