If you want something truly unique and extraordinarily healthy, you may consider a completely raw foods menu for your reception. Raw food isn't just salads and veggie trays. A raw food diet is filled with fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouts, and fresh living juices that are packed with enzymes and nutrients to promote optimal health. A raw diet is all about the enzymes in fresh foods. Enzymes are responsible for every metabolic action in the body; they enable cells to work and chemical reactions to happen. Temperature greatly affects enzymes in food. Cooking, baking, frying, and even freezing all deplete natural foods of enzymes, vitamins, and nutrients.

In a true raw/living foods diet no animal products — including meat, eggs, and dairy — are consumed. Raw foods are served raw, with no cooking and generally no heating above 110°F. Some foods are dehydrated or soaked in vinegar to ferment. Some are gently steamed or blanched for short periods at low temperatures to help break down the cellulose fibers to make them easier to digest.

A raw diet made from organic produce is arguably the most environmentally sound and health-conscious of all choices, but in today's fastpaced society who has the time to sprout, dehydrate, ferment, and “process” their own organic, raw, living foods? However, if you have an expert raw chef or caterer in your area who has experience with raw foods, this may be the perfect opportunity to try it out, either for prewedding parties or for your green reception.

A raw food menu has many options you would probably never imagine. In the book Living Cuisine: The Art and Spirit of Raw Foods by Renee Loux Underkoffler, there are more than 300 amazing recipes for raw foods. Her recipes include beverages, fresh soups, salads and salad dressings, appetizers, seed and nut cheeses, side dishes, main course dinners, burgers and other meatless patties, and a wide varieties of desserts.

Not one thing is cooked in any of those recipes. Everything is soaked, pressed, and processed either in a food processor or through dehydration. Any cookie, bread, grain, or crust food is always pressed and dehydrated. Some food is gently warmed, blanched, or steamed, but only enough to make it easier to eat while retaining all the natural enzymes.

You don't have to totally change what you eat, but it might be fun to try something new for prewedding get-togethers; if that goes well, you can make the decision to stick with it for the main wedding menu.