Did someone pop the question? Are you planning the wedding of your dreams? Do you love coffee as much as you love your fiancé? Sprudge.com recently took the nation’s top wedding planners and teamed them up with America’s top baristas and have created the definitive guide, replete with the best wedding favors, the hottest tips, and the insider’s scoop on how to pull off a pitch-perfect coffee wedding.
1. Invite your guests using coffee jute bags.
What better way to set the tone for your fabulous coffee wedding? Several designers work with jute, the type of burlap used to ship green coffee beans all around the world. We just love these jute wrapped invites from Brooklyn Limestone, but if you really want to make a splash, why not use repurposed coffee bag paper? Pam DeLuco makes custom coffee paper and can craft custom letterpress invites. “Another idea,” Pam tells us, “is a guest book made completely from coffee sack paper!”
2. Serve a custom coffee blend.
Create your very own matrimonial house blend. Use two different coffees, naturally. Two beans that, when blended, are balanced and bring out the best in each other! Contact a local roaster in your hometown and ask about custom blends. Many high end roasters in America have created the perfect blends for weddings! Best of all, you can set aside a little extra of your blend to make a charming (and memorable) take-home gift for your wedding guests. And if you’re really connected, maybe the high-end coffee bar near you will pull you a honeymoon shot the next day!
3. Hire the industry’s best baristas.
Your wedding day service team must be polite, professional, and look GREAT in a tux or strapless gown. Reach out to your neighborhood coffee spot, or consider hiring out a cafe with great catering services, such as LA’s Handsome Coffee Roasters, PT’s Coffee Roasting in Topeka, Kansas, Sterling Coffee Roasters in Portland, Oregon, Cafe Evoke in Oklahoma, Everyman Espresso in New York City (serving goodies roasted by Counter Culture Coffee), Houndstooth Coffee in Austin, Palace Coffee Company and Courier Coffee Bar in the Texas panhandle, Greenway Coffee Company in Houston, Espresso Neat in Darien, Connecticut, Workshop Coffee in London, MadCap Coffee Company in Grand Rapids and Washington DC, Bolt Coffee Company in Rhode Island, and Manual Labor Coffee in Toronto. That’s just a partial list! Ask your local roaster if they offer catering services.
4. Have the perfect coffee gear.
Now that you have your blend, and you have your coffee catering team, you gotta know what to ask for so they brew it right! Have a coffee service on hand at the reception with a simple set up of pour-overs and slow-brewed coffee options. You might ask if they can offer a well-calibrated “batch brew” option – more commonly referred to as “drip coffee”, and absolutely delicious when done right. And of course, on-site espresso (like from a compact La Marzocco GS-3 single group espresso machine) turns any wedding coffee service from “neat” to “elite”.
5. Don’t forget the decaf!
In the same way you might plan a top-notch vegetarian option for your meatless guests, make sure your coffee team has the decaf situation covered. That way all of your guests can enjoy your lovely wedding coffee service – even caffeine-free Uncle Hershel.
We’re partnered with the folks at Swiss Water Decaf, who in turn are partnered with many of the best specialty coffee roasters in the world. You can check out a full list of their North American decaf options by clicking this link.
6. Have coffee for dinner.
Well, not just coffee. Ask your catering team about the possibility of incorporating coffee into your dinner or dessert menu. Espresso-rubbed pork loin or cappuccino panna cotta, anyone? Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio recently partnered with New York’s Dallis Bros. Coffee for a four-course coffee tasting dinner at Craftbar, one of his swanky Manhattan joints. The menu included options like coffee cured hamachi and soft-cooked farm egg, fontina, and coffee-braised black truffles. Pull this off on your big day and the wedding blogs will freak, to say nothing of your Grandma!
7. Coffee? Cocktails? Both!
There’s a whole world of delicious coffee-and-booze possibilities available behind your open bar. Many of the best coffee cocktails incorporate bottled cold brew coffee – we recommend you pick up some cold brew from our friends at Stumptown Coffee Roasters (Portland / Seattle / NYC), Secret Squirrel Cold Brew (LA), or Slingshot Coffee Company (Durham, NC), to name just a few. For cool ideas, check out this feature in Imbibe Magazine, featuring Greenway Coffee Company guru David Buehrer – he’s teamed with local Houston bartenders to create drinks like the Coffee Caipirinha, “made with cachaça, turbinado sugar and iced coffee” as well as the “Coffee Old Fashioned, made with cold-brew coffee and chocolaty Demerara rum.” Yum!
