A GUIDE TO INNOVATIVE LUXURY WEDDING CATERING

Wedding catering should be about providing an exceptional experience, telling a story and showcasing your personalities!

I place a huge emphasis and importance on only sourcing caterers for my clients who are known for their innovative ideas and only use ingredients of exceptional quality. It is also imperative that they have access to a team that will deliver an incredible service on your wedding day. Bespoke catering is not always about designing a full new menu but thinking about ways that you can create intention behind the food you choose, how it’s presented, served, and tells a story.

TRIGGER MEMORIES

Taste and smell is the sense that we associate with memory the most. Have you ever been taken straight back to your childhood with a simple smell? Food has the ability to transport us back to places, times, and people. This could be your favourite cuisine you love to cook together, a tribute to a special dessert your granny always baked for you, the dish your family ate together every week, the food you enjoyed on your favourite holiday or from the restaurant you visited on your first date. Emotive food is memorable and even if you're not designing a full new menu think about ways that you can present those chosen dishes, or choose combinations that reflect you both!

For one of my client’s weekend weddings this year we are basing their entire hangover brunch on the restaurant in Cannes they became engaged in, ending their wedding with memories of how their journey to marriage all began!

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES

As well as those subtle details there are ways to use catering to seek the attention of your guests and blow them away enhancing their whole experience. A sensory feast that’s a hands-on, interactive eating experience is guaranteed to bring a sense of drama as well as deliciousness to your table.

Huge dessert displays, cocktail martini tower, theatrical food stations, live tableside cooking, ice sculpture seafood station, nitrogen ice cream cart ect. These are also great talking points for guests and will ignite conversation between those who don’t know each other that well to begin with too.

TELL THE STORY

It is important that for an event to feel like home to your guests as well as you they need to be in on the storyline. When designing your physical menus with your stationer add notes underneath the dishes to explain why each course was chosen or what memory your menu is inspired by. For more intimate dinners you can actually hold back the menu all together for that extra element of surprise and have each dish verbally explained to guests after the last plate has been served. One of my couples had bespoke labels made for their table wines as they were chosen from a vineyard they love visiting together near home, as I walked around the room I could hear so many people saying what a lovely idea that was.

CONSIDER YOUR BEVERAGE

Incorporating drinks as a way of elevating your menu, and adding to the whole experience. Why not serve a wine pairing with each course to compliment your chosen food flavours? Name your reception cocktails after yourselves or have a shot escort table!

Cocktails are a great way to start and finish a meal and can act as palette cleansers, a seasonal tipple or digestive. Serving everyone an espresso martini with their dessert instead of coffee to get the party going, make your toast a champagne-based cocktail, or go to the extra effort at your intimate occasion and serve everyone their individual favourite! Making cocktails correctly and symmetrically in large quantities is hard work. Professional bartenders have a similar skill set to chefs and shouldn't be overlooked for weddings and events with more complex beverage requirements; depending on your caterer you may need to look at hiring in a specialised bar company.

When it comes to your wedding design make your bar a huge focal point for your evening reception as it’s somewhere all of your guests will visit multiple times! Whether that’s with a huge floral installation, lighting and production, flair bartenders, parasols or ceiling install, make sure it is not too far away from the dancefloor either in order to not split your guests and enhance the atmosphere.

CONSIDER THE SERVICE

Any menu design has to be operationally possible. Strike a balance of providing ample food without being wasteful, and keeping the drinks flowing without getting all your guests drunk within the first few hours!

Before looking at narrowing down each dish make sure you ask all of your guests if they have any dietaries on their save the dates (for example if you have someone with a severe nut allergy I would advise all dishes to be nut free as this completely eliminates the risk of any disasters on the wedding day). With most of my clients, I always suggest sending a save the date digitally on paperless post to collate this information quickly and efficiently.

I am seeing fewer couples give their guests a huge amount of choices on their menus as this saves a lot of time collating pre-orders, ensures everyone is part of the experience they are trying to curate and makes for a much smoother service on the day. This doesn’t mean guests’ requirements aren’t catered for as this is done at the design stage because you already have all that information to hand!

Part of the experience of your wedding breakfast is how the food is served, is this a collection of sharing plates, a tasting menu, or plated dishes? This will also determine the design of your tables, for example sharing dishes will need additional space to be placed down on the tables, you will need to consider hiring 3ft wide trestles or maybe making the tablescape more of a minimal design. Having layered plates on a place setting looks gorgeous but you need to think about where these plates might go when the starter is served, or will the caterers need to take away a plate before service commences?

KEEP IT YOU

Innovative and bespoke wedding catering doesn’t have to result in huge grand gestures, those small unobtrusive details that evoke a smile can be just as memorable and special for your guests. As a luxury wedding planner, I will always advise my couples to keep anything they plan ‘them’. This is not an opportunity to do something completely out of your comfort zone or that isn’t really you as it won’t be relatable on the day.