Traditional & Non-Traditional Wedding Food Ideas

From Canapes to Wedding Breakfasts to the more casual Family Style wedding food or even Street Food for your main wedding meal.

Fabulous grazing boards from rustic_roast_kitchen

I’ve spent my entire life in hospitality, making sure people are well-fed & well-looked-after. I was serving wedding breakfasts in marquees from my teenage years, so I’ve learned a hell of a lot on the way. So, here’s my expert catering knowledge to bring you quickly up to speed with some wedding meal ideas.

Traditionally at wedding’s the type of foods that are offered include canapes served during your drink’s reception followed by a seated three course meal called a wedding breakfast, and finally there is usually some evening snacks in the form of a buffet later on in the night.

Firstly, I’ll break down what all these wedding foods are. Then of course we will delve into the more non-traditional wedding food ideas to mix things up a bit because I know that’s more your kind of thing.

Canapes:

Canapes are small bite-sized pockets of joy. Obviously, my person opinion, but I can’t think of anything better than sipping on champagne, chatting away in a stunning outdoor setting being offered delicious finger food canapes to try without having to move an inch. They are a great addition to your drinks reception and help to keep your guests topped up with fuel. It also helps fill the time whilst you are having your photos taken.

If you love the idea of giving your guests lots of different canapes, hot & cold then perhaps you can have enough to miss out your starter and just go straight into your main meal. If you are on the fence about canapes, think more about your guests experience here. If they are absolutely starving by the time the main meal is served, it’s probably something they will remember. Also, if you are doing your speeches before the meal this is even longer for guests to wait to be fed.

Keep reading for an alternative to canapes during your drink’s reception.

Wedding Breakfast

What does a wedding breakfast mean? Well back in the day, weddings were usually held in the mornings, so that first meal you had with your guests, after your ceremony, was your first meal of the day so therefore breaking the overnight fast.

So, the term wedding breakfast doesn’t mean you need to offer bacon and sausages to your guests at 8am.

Nowadays wedding breakfast basically means the main meal of your wedding day that you have with all your guests after your drink’s reception, during the afternoon.

This wedding food option has minimal effort from guests as it is served directly to the table by your caterers. Most caterers will ask you to choose one starter, one main & one dessert for all guests to enjoy and they will then cater for any dietary requirements separately, this is called a set wedding menu. Some caterers will allow your guests to choose in advance from a choice menu. But be prepared, with this option, it is your responsibility to send the menu to each of your guests, find out these choices, chase your guests for them and hand all the information over to your caterers in good time. It’s a lot of admin for you and caterers do usually charge extra as there is more elements and more prep time required due to it being a bigger menu.

Your caterers will require a guestlist and table plan with all your guest’s allergies clearly marked beforehand.

Plus side to booking a wedding planner, we do all this wedding guest food chasing and the back and forth with your caterers. We make sure the caterers have all the information they need at the right times.

Wedding Evening Food Ideas

A lot of your standard wedding day catering packages include an evening buffet, normally in the colour of beige. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a beige buffet and it does a brilliant job of soaking up that wine. However, there are now so many delicious alternatives to the normal wedding evening buffet. 

Generally, it is suggested to cater for about 80% of your guests in the evening. Honestly, every wedding is different as to how much food is required. If you have a lot of extra evening guests arriving, they will need to be fed. If it’s quite a long time between your main meal and evening food, then your guests will be nice and hungry again. My husbands one and only request was that their was enough food for everyone as he knew our guests loved to eat. We upped the evening food and it all went. You know your own guests.

Your evening food should be quick and easy to grab and go as I know you want your guests back on that dance floor as quickly as possible!!

Alternative & non-traditional wedding food ideas:

Wedding Canape Alternative:

Instead of canapes, how about grazing platters or boards for guests to help themselves. Italian themed wedding food such as focaccia bread, dips, bruschetta, cured meats and cheeses.

Charcuterie cones – check these out above. Slightly more substantial than a bite-sized canape and you could fill the cones with whatever you fancy. Mini fish & chip cones with mushy peas always go down so well. You could opt to have these sorts of snacks laid on tables instead of handed around by your caterers.

Indian themed snacks such as samosas & onion bhajis.

Oyster station

Go with what works for you and your vibe.

Wedding Breakfast & Evening Food Alternatives:

Instead of a three-course seated meal, why not go with a huge wedding buffet spread of all your favourite hot and cold foods. You could have Mexican themed with tacos & nachos or BBQ/Hog Roast.

Just remember if you are going to have your guests come up to help themselves make sure you have 2 or 3 different sides to the buffet to limit queues as it gets people fed quicker. Your caterers/wedding planner will help to ensure guests come up table by table so you don’t start off with a huge queue.

If you really want informal, how about some table entertainment such as a magician or singers to keep guests occupied whilst each table heads up to load up their plate.

However, if you’re not keen on your guests having to get up how about family style. Family style is an interactive, sharing style. This is when you have bowls or platers of food placed on the centre of each table for guests to help themselves to. This is a much more informal and relaxed way to serve your main meal to your guests. They can choose what to have from what’s on the table. You get the best of both worlds with this option.

As you can see, guests are more than happy to pass food amongst each other.

Wedding Evening Food Ideas:

Instead of the standard beige buffet how about street food trucks for your evening food. There are so many insanely tasty casual street food vans.

My advice, go to a local street food festival or if you have somewhere that has street food trucks set up as a market over the weekend. Try them all, find your favourite and ask if they do weddings. I’d just go as an excuse to try new foods and sink a few drinks. Jamaican, Greek, Pizza, Fish & Chips, American Fried Chicken - take your pick.

Think about theming some evening food based on where you are from. If you are a local Brummie perhaps cheese and onion cobs.

Final thoughts:

The good thing about there being so many different options out there, means you will find a caterer that fits your style and vibe. Be bold, be different and don’t settle.

Final tip – If you can avoid speeches in between courses this is much better for caterers. Your food is more likely to be hot & on time. I prefer speeches at the end of a meal when every is well fed, most relaxed and you will therefore have their undivided attention.

Always here to help

xx

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