Functionality Choices
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SAMPLE MENU ONE
First course: Appetizer: Oysters on the half shell
Second course: Soup: Italian wedding
Third course: Salad: Caesar
Fourth course: Fish: Atlantic salmon (white wine)
– Champagne toast –
Fifth course: Beef: Beef wellington (red wine)
Sixth course: Dessert: Wedding cake (cordial)
If there’s no bread included in the menu, you can dispense with the bread and butter knife and plate. There will of course be non-alcoholic drinks served, so we’ll need a water goblet for ice water or iced tea.
But there are oysters, so we’ll need the oyster forks. They’ll go on the outside, like in the diagram above, because we always work our way outside to inside with the silverware. (Remember: fork and left have four letters; knife, spoon, and right have five letters.)
We also have both soup and salad, which means a soup spoon and a salad knife are the next items on the right as we work our way inward, just like on the diagram above. A salad fork is our next item on the left.
Our fourth course is fish, which means a fish fork and fish knife (less imposing than their bigger dinner fork/knife cousins) are the next to be put down on the left and right respectively. Since we’re serving the fish course with white wine, we need to be sure to include space for a white wine glass.
We’ve decided to pause here for a champagne toast to the bride and groom, so we have to account for a champagne flute in the order of our glassware (in this case, it would go between the white and red wine glass), unless waiters are passing pre-poured glasses of champagne separately on trays.
Our fifth course is beef, where we break out the heavy artillery: our dinner fork and dinner knife (again, left and right respectively). These suckers will be the biggest pieces of flatware at the place setting. Since we’re switching our wine from white to red, we need the red wine glass present as well.
And finally, a dessert course of our own wedding cake, which will come on its own plate and its own clean fork, straight from the kitchen where it’s been plated. A cordial will be served with dessert, so we’ll need a cordial glass, which is almost like a champagne flute but much smaller.