INFUSED WITH STYLE

Forbidden rice cake, Dungeness crab, yellow beet soup. Today, what you choose to serve at your wedding says as much about your personality and distinctive flair as the gown you wear. "It's a new food culture," according to Paula LeDuc Fine Catering in San Francisco and Emeryville, California. "Couples are very sophisticated and independent. They shop for food together and love to cook together, and when it comes to their wedding, they like to push the limit."

Caterer Bill Homan agrees. A partner in Design Cuisine of Arlington,Virginia and Washington,D.C., Homan says they're being challenged creatively by savvy clients looking for unique variations on healthy dishes, Asian spices, organic ingredients and, as he adds with a laugh, "tricks, trends, and fun." Fabulous feats of catering, combined with dazzling staging of the wedding meal, are the new gold standard for turning your special occasion into a memorable one. The new cocktail hour takes on dramatic flair when moved into a "cocktail tent" like the one recently created by Bill Homan and his amazing chefs from Design Cuisine in flowing Bedouin style, with colorful feathered paneling, faux ostrich-skin tables, and exotic lanterns. Inside this cozy romantic setting, guests find an elegant display of fanciful hors d'oeuvres like mini grilled cheese sandwiches, one-bite mango lobster rolls, and petit foie-gras burgers, each presented on plates designed for sharing and accompanied by shots of savory tomato juice.

In the sun-drenched warmth of California's Napa Valley, LeDuc creates leisurely Mediterranean-style wedding feasts around pools, in vineyards, and on mountaintops. Seating is arranged as one "endless table," sometimes for as many as 300 guests. Invoking the new definition of eating "familystyle," groups of four share each course from a main platter. Family and friends get to visit and dance while dining at their own pace, taking time to relax between as many as six courses. Like a scene out of some "charmant" European film, guests linger for hours over a bounty of fresh-from-the-earth foods.