Choosing Your Wedding Menu: A Practical Guide

Food is the part of the day guests genuinely remember. They'll forget the table runners and the exact shade of the napkins, but they will absolutely remember if dinner was cold, late, or so fancy nobody could tell what it was. So it pays to get the menu right, and "right" usually means good rather than grand.

Catering is also one of the biggest single lines in the budget. According to Hitched's National Wedding Survey, catering swallows roughly a quarter of the average UK wedding budget, around £4,700 in recent figures. Decisions here move the numbers more than almost anything else.

Start with the feel of your day

Before you taste a single canapé, picture the room. A long lazy garden lunch, a black-tie sit-down, a relaxed evening of sharing platters: each one points to a different menu, and a different cost.

Match the food to the formality. A three-course plated dinner in a marquee at noon can feel oddly stiff. A pizza van after a church wedding might feel too casual for some families, and just right for others. There's no correct answer, only the one that fits the two of you.

And think about timing. If there's a long gap between ceremony and dinner, your guests will be hungry and a bit merry. Decent canapés or a substantial nibble in that window does more for the mood than an extra course at dinner ever will.

Pick a service style

How the food reaches the table changes the price, the pace and the atmosphere. The main options:

• Plated (silver service or pre-plated): elegant, controlled portions, the most staff-heavy and usually the priciest.
• Buffet: relaxed, lets people choose, but watch for queues with a big guest list.
• Family-style sharing platters: warm and sociable, food down the middle of the table, naturally encourages conversation.
• Food stations or street food: fun, flexible, great for evening dos, less formal.

For a sit-down meal of around 80 to 100 guests, family-style often hits the sweet spot: it feels generous, gets people talking, and skips the buffet queue.

Build a menu people will actually eat

The temptation is to choose dishes that sound impressive. Resist a little. The best wedding menus lean on things that travel well from kitchen to plate and please a wide crowd.

A few honest pointers:

• Choose a main that holds up if service runs late. Slow-cooked meats and braises forgive a delay; a rare steak or delicate fish does not.
• Offer a proper vegetarian or vegan main, not a sad plate of the sides. A growing share of guests want it, and a good veggie option flatters your caterer.
• Keep the canapés light if dinner is big. Three or four per head is plenty.
• Save the showing-off for one course. A standout starter or a memorable pudding lands better than three over-ambitious plates.

A rough cost-per-head guide

Prices vary hugely by region, venue and season, so treat these as a sense-check rather than gospel.

Plan dietary needs properly

This is where a lot of couples come unstuck, and it's entirely avoidable. You need every allergy, intolerance and preference captured well before the caterer's final numbers are due, usually two to three weeks out.

Don't rely on memory or a scribbled note. Ask on the RSVP, list the common ones (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut allergy) and leave a free-text box for anything else. A serious allergy is a safety matter, not a fussy request, and your caterer needs the detail in writing.

Collecting this by hand across 100 replies is a headache. If you're using Build The Day, guests can choose their meal and flag dietary needs as part of their RSVP, and it all lands in one tidy list the kitchen can work from. However you gather it, the principle is the same: one source of truth, not fifteen text messages.

Taste before you commit

Always book a tasting. It's not a free dinner (well, it sort of is), it's quality control. Go hungry, take notes, and bring whoever's helping pay so opinions are aired now rather than on the day.

At the tasting, ask the practical questions. How is the food kept warm for 100 covers? What's the backup if an ingredient is unavailable? How many staff will be serving? A confident caterer answers these easily; a vague one is a warning sign.

Get the final menu, the per-head price and what's included (service, crockery, cake-cutting) in writing. Then you can stop thinking about food and start looking forward to eating it.