One week ahead I made up 9 large freezer zip lock packages of meatballs with pineapple chunks and sweet and sour sauce on them and froze them. I also made 300 mini cheese cakes using the mini muffin tins with the silver foil cup liners and Keebler mini vanilla wafers for the crust. I also zip locked the cheese cakes and froze them. I made up 24 bottles of sparkling cider with the labels about 1 week ahead and 1 special bottle for the bride and groom. I made up the mini Hershey candy bar wrappers 2 weeks ahead. I baked 36 lbs of chicken breasts 1 week ahead, diced the meat, and then froze it all in ziplock bags to be made into chicken salad the day before the wedding.

Two days ahead I made my giant cheese ball shaped like 3 stacked packages with silver and gold Mylar ribbons (needed something that would hold up under refrigeration and not bleed) and string beads. This was as I had thought, a real conversation piece. People thought at first that it was really a cake since it was so big. I elevated the cheese ball on a soda crate covered with linen napkins and placed a very long, narrow basket with handles covered with linen napkins in front of the cheese ball with the Pepperidge Farm "Entertainment Style" crackers inside of it. These crackers are very high quality and one of the cracker shapes is a butterfly so very wedding worthy.

Nancy's awesome 'cheese ball'  - instructions farther down this page.

I made the salads the day before and put damp paper towels over the top with plastic wrap over that and then the foil lid. The broccoli and apple salad was the best received. I served it along with Teri's awesome Pasta salad (recipe from this site.)

I made two veggie platters and two fruit platters the day before and covered each with damp paper towels and plastic wrap. No clamp on lid was used because my trays are always so high.

One day before I picked up my rented 4 tier silver tray. This is 30" across at the bottom tier. This was covered with green leaf lettuce and lemon slices around the edge. The shrimp was placed on top of the lettuce and on the top tier was a small silver bowl that had a pedestal base so that it could clear a screw that stuck up at the top. From this silver bowl was hung the very large shrimp. This was the eye catcher for the right hand side of the table. 

I took out the meatballs and chicken from the freezer 2 days before to thaw. The meatballs were on the very end in a chafing dish and the second chafing dish was filled with lil' smokies in a grape jelly and chili sauce sauce.

The cheese ball 'cake' is at the far end of the table along with the deviled eggs
 and the chicken salad croissants, you can see the shrimp next to the chaffers.

Cheese Ball
The cheese ball was made with 4, 3 lb bricks of softened cream cheese and 24 cups of mild pre shredded cheese and 24 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce and 24 teaspoons of minced yellow onion. 

I started out on a large cake board that was silver with a scalloped edge. I bought it from Party Depot. I started in the middle of the board and just started shaping it into the package shape. when I got the correct size then I worked on getting the height right. Any excess cheese ball that was on the cake board was wiped off with a paper towel with no one the wiser. I then proceeded with the other two tiers. When I got to the corners I would smooth them from both directions to make it sharp. I used large string beads to go around the bottom of each tier. On the lowest tier I placed 3 Mylar 1/4 inch ribbons, silver, gold, silver with 2 rows of small string beads separating the silver. I did this to all 4 sides of the lowest package. I also placed two star 
mylar bows of silver and gold on each corner of the lowest tier. On the middle package I took softened cream cheese and spread out a bunch on a piece of waxed paper. I put the waxed paper onto a cookie sheet and then froze the whole works. 
After 1 hour I was able to use my heart shaped cookie cutter to make the heart shapes that you see laid onto the middle tier. The middle tier also had a silver Mylar 1/2 inch ribbon crossing over 1 corner of the tier. For the top tier I used 1/2 inch Mylar ribbon on all sides and then wrapped this up well with plastic wrap. I made this 2 days before the wedding and didn't add the foofy bow to the top until right after the plastic wrap was removed. 

Don't panic when the cake cracks. It will. Just take your finger and run it along the crack to fill it back in. I should mention that after all the cheese ball has been shaped into the 3 tiers then you do need to melt plain cream cheese in the microwave to use as frosting.  Don't worry that the frosting is all bumpy and not smooth. Stick this in the frig uncovered for 30 mins.  Pull it out and then smooth down the frosting with your finger (a small cake spatula dipped in hot water might work for this too ..Dayle.)  
It will be smooth now. This took me 2 hours to make, but was very much a conversation piece.

More Notes:
The advice I would give is to forget the ice sculpture.  Even though it is pretty we didn't have a freezer. We had  to borrow the neighbors for the 3 days it took to set it up. We also had to find someone to deliver it to the reception that wasn't really a relative or friend since they were already at the wedding. When the sculpture arrived it had to be cut out of the plastic mold. We accomplished this using a dremel drill with a special cutting tip. This took a long time and made a big plastic shaving mess behind the bar. The first ice mold I got on sale had 4 leaks in it & I was pulling my hair out in desperation. I was able to get a new one on a rush order and still have time to get it into the freezer in enough time for the wedding.

I would recommend making the champagne or sparkling cider labels. I heard a lot of positive things about them. The fortune cookie were a nice touch at each table setting. The centerpieces were nice because of the 3 gold fish swimming around the bulb of the calla lily. (For those of you wondering what happened to the goldfish, after the wedding they were transported in a bucket in someone's van.  The bucket tipped over and the fish were 'toast' the unlucky owner of the van found 3 more dead ones days later... terrible smell in car ... Dayle)

Also the day of the wedding I needed 3 people to help in the kitchen to make sure the chicken salad croissant sandwiches were made up at the last minute and also that the meatballs were heated and chafing dishes going, etc. I could have made all the food myself. I received help on the veggie and fruit platters of the food being cut up. I know that I would have had to have help in the kitchen at the reception just due to the timing of things and I didn't want to miss the ceremony. My kitchen help was the hardest working crew 
that you will ever run up against.

Sparkling Cider Labels
I just wanted to share with you something that I tried and was successful with. I took a sparkling cider bottle and removed its label. I then made my own label on the computer that reads,
sir name's

For Our Wedding Day
August 24th, 2002

These tiny bubbles
Will bring you delight,
When you make your first toast
As husband and wife.

Of course the script was all centered on the label and the sir name was typed in large black font, sparkling cider was typed in medium red font, and the wedding info in large gold font, and the toasting message in small black font. I then put a skinny red border at the very top & bottom of the label. I took the bottle neck label & removed it for a pattern to trace out onto gold shiny sticker paper. I used a LaserJet printer & printed the letter of the couple's last name. I lined up the original label with the capitol letter underneath it the best that I could estimate in order to center it. I then cut out the gold sticker paper into the shape of a neck label. I stuck the neck label onto the neck of the bottle with their last name initial centered on bottle. 
I also will make other labels for the guests bottles. There will be 24 that will say the same thing but, slightly different:

These tiny bubbles
will bring us delight,
if you join us 
in our first toast
as husband and wife.

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