I have the option of serving 2 types of pastas at cocktail hour (along with tons of other food:8 passed hors' d'oevres, carving station of prime rib, mussels, clams, and calamari station, and cheese, vegetable, fruit, bruschetta displays)
OR
serving one type of pasta as an additional course during dinner. My mom really thinks it should be its own course. I'm undecided. Here's my thought process:
If we serve it as its own course, it will add an additional 25-30 minutes to dinner (about an hour and a half total) since they have to cook it and then guests need time to eat it.
(While guests are waiting for the pasta , we would do the parent dances and toasts)
Without the pasta course, dancing time will be about 2 hours 40 minutes. With the pasta course, it'll be about 2 hours 10 minutes.
Guests will have a salad and their choice of entree (which comes with red roasted potatoes and veggies). If the pasta were its own course it would come after the salad.
Later in the night the cake will be cut and a dessert table will be brought out.
I should also mention that the pasta is included in our venue package so I'd be essentially throwing money away if I didn't serve it at all.
The dilemma:
Part of me wants to leave it as a part of cocktail hour so that there will be more dancing time.
My mom is concerned that people who won't be dancing (mostly the older folks which there are a good amount of) will get bored with a shorter dinner and more dancing time.
She also mentioned that some people won't go to cocktail hour (I don't think this will happen, but who knows), so the pasta should be served with dinner.
I don't know what to do and am annoyed that this small detail is causing me stress (I realize that I won't care about this at all on the actual day, haha)
What would you do?
