For Cape Cod weddings, the traditional style of formal rehearsal dinners is giving way to more contemporary and diverse dining options.
Bill Zammer owns Cape Cod Restaurants, which oversees three properties: Pinehills Golf Club in Plymouth and the Coonamessett Farm and the Flying Bridge Restaurant, both in Falmouth. All three properties offer unique rehearsal dinner settings, such as golfing outings, softball games and the choice of chartering a sailboat out of Falmouth Harbor.
In addition to the unique settings, the food is something special, too - with clambakes and barbecues as two of the most popular menus. Included in the clambake menu are items such as New England Clam Chowder, grilled barbecue chicken, steamed native clams, steamed hard shell lobster and fresh corn on the cob. For the barbecue menu, items include cheeseburgers, hot dogs, assorted salads and ribs.
“What’s interesting is that 30-40 people will go to the rehearsal dinner, and then after dinner, we’ll have a cocktail hour where they can have drinks and socialize,” Zammer says.
Olive Chase founded The Casual Gourmet in Centerville in 1986 and for the past 22 years her company’s rehearsal dinners have catered non-traditional sites and non-traditional food, she says.
For example, a clambake that The Casual Gourmet catered in July at Nauticus Marina in Osterville featured a tent set-up that included silver plates, fine china and beautiful glassware - hardly elements considered typical of an ordinary clambake.
Last fall at Lawrence Pond in Sandwich, on a property belonging to the groom’s family, The Casual Gourmet recreated the sense of a summer camp. The groom’s great-grandmother had started a girl’s camp there more than a hundred years ago - and the remnants of the camp were completely decorated with old pictures of people in bathing suits. Chase’s staff added a bonfire on the beach and a cheeseburger bar.
“It was very personal and very unique to this bride and groom to bring in the history of groom’s family,” Chase says. “It was quite fabulous.”
The cheeseburger bar included a variety of toppings, including several types of cheese, condiments, sautéed mushrooms, grilled onions, roasted bell peppers and grilled pineapple. Tequila-lime grilled chicken kabobs, oriental orzo salad, tropical fruit kabobs and red potato, grilled zucchini and sweet onion salad also were offered.
In Falmouth, Chase and her staff catered another non-traditional rehearsal dinner, creating a Middle Eastern buffet, with hummus, baba ganoush, tabouli, lamb and poached salmon. As a final touch, the meal was topped all off with something a little unexpected for a Middle Eastern meal – Smitty’s Homemade Ice Cream, made in Falmouth.
The latest trend for rehearsal dinners echoes one gaining popularity in other consumer interests, from home building to clothing: going green.
“One of our trends that people are very interested in is what their carbon footprint is. So, they want to use local produce, local fish, and not use disposables,” Chase says. “People are very interested in where their food was grown and (from) how far away it had to come.”
By Katelyn Harding
