But in French, canapé is a sofa. A "cocktail and canapé reception" might give quite the wrong idea...

A canapé is a sofa but it is also an amuse-bouche AND a piece of bread fried in butter or oil served with partridge : "Perdreau sur canapé" is not necessarily eaten while reclining on a couch with Roman abandon :-)

Separate but linked question:

For much of my adult life, you had amuse-gueule. Now it suddenly seems to be amuse-bouche everywhere.

Are the French getting an attack of American-style prissiness (as in rooster for cock, or canola for rape)? Or are they just frightened someone'll ask them to write it down and their orthographic inadequacy will be uncovered?

I would use number 1, presuming this is going to English speakers.

"Cocktail and Hors d'oeuvre Reception"

The words "cocktail" and "hors d'oeuvre" are adjectives describing the "reception". They would not be plural.

One would not capitalize the H and R in a proper sentence. But I think it's OK in a formal invitation. Have you checked Emily Post or Miss Manners?

Amuse-gueule always belonged to the spoken and informal language.
Amuse-bouche is more formal. Having a "bouche" rather than a "gueule" sets you apart from the usual dog, lion, tiger etc... met on a daily basis in French cities. :-)

BTW there was a book of quotes from Mr G.W Bush with the French title of "Amuse-Bush"

My 'Petit Robert; dictionary (petit, but still 2471 pages) puts a hyphen between amuse and gueule (or bouche) and gives the choice of 's' or not with the plural.

So, 'Des amuse-bouches or des amuse-bouche - defined as 'euphemism for amuse- gueule'

des amuse-gueules or des amuse-gueule

All this talk re: "gueule" reminds me of the choice use of "pie-hole" in a recent thread regarding Brasserie Lipp...good for a chuckle. Language sure can be funny.

Thanks for all your ideas! This is a busines function, so we went with safe albeit boring, Cocktail Buffet. But, St. Cirq, poncier is my new favorite word, even if I don't know exactly what it means! I looked up ponce, and it's a pimp, yikes! BTW, St. Cirq, we were wandering aimlessly through the Dordogne last year, and came across a teeny tiny town. We were driving a rather large van and tentatively made our way up to the top of the village where there was a cave of sorts, but it was locked up. I always wondered if that was your town... annieladd

Why do Americans call their main course an entrée?

I'd never heard of the word poncy, or poncier, either, but here it is:

http://tinyurl.com/2gqyst

Learn something new every day! :-D

anniladd: You found me! My house is the next dwelling beyond the cave. The owner of the cave died in 2005 and it's not be open on a regular schedule since then.

St. Cirq, wow I found you!! We were there one day last year, in September I think, when a terrible storm came through in the middle of the night, and knocked down trees across a lot of roads and took out power all over. I think we were going to Font du Gaume that day, and all the power was out (we did make it the next day). It is a perfect little village, I aspire to live just your kind of life! annieladd