A Family-Style Wedding at Zaca Lake

One hundred and six guests, family style, on a property whose kitchen is real but sits too far from the reception spaces to serve a wedding from. So we built a complete field kitchen where the celebration actually happened, and used the property’s kitchen for cold storage only. That is the standing plan at Zaca Lake, not an improvisation, and it is the difference between a menu that arrives hot at a long table and one that does not.

The menu leaned into early October. Four passed appetizers opened the evening, then a stone fruit and wild arugula salad with goat cheese and aged balsamic, then two mains sent to every table: shoyu braised short ribs, and roasted lemon cod with chive beurre blanc.

Three sides went alongside, all of them vegetable-forward and all of them vegan and gluten free as written: roasted farm vegetables with garden herbs, spiced carrots with a pistachio and mint pistou, and caramelized brussels sprouts with a champagne vinaigrette. Bread and butter sat on every table. Two vegan guests were served a vegan risotto and the salad without cheese, plated to look like everyone else’s.

Service ran on a tight clock. Ceremony at 4:30, cocktail hour until 5:45, dinner on the tables at 5:50. The one detail we like most from this evening is a small one: the couple wanted espresso martinis, and rather than let a bar queue form after dinner we prepped them in advance and had the team pass trays at 7:00, then set the rest out to grab. Dessert followed twenty minutes later, passion fruit and lemon bars with the cutting cake.

The crew was one event captain, five servers, two bartenders, and a lead chef with two in the kitchen. The bar ran a full spirits program with three signature drinks, a spicy margarita, a manhattan, and the espresso martinis, plus an extra hour of service with last call at 10:30.