Food For Thought

There are lots of things to consider when choosing the best time for your wedding ceremony, and lots of factors will influence your choice. Ultimately it is your choice, so take this advice with a pinch of salt, but hopefully it will help you think through the many possibilities.

Registrar / Church availability

One of the biggest influences on your choice of wedding time is availability of the church, or registrars. There are always more weddings on a popular summer Saturday than there are registrars or churches to go around. So, our number one piece of advice is to get in early with the booking of the church or registrar to avoid losing out on the time you want.

Early weddings

Weddings pre midday are rare but do happen. The upside can be longer hours of daylight if your chosen date is outside the main summer months; also there is less time for guests to get sneaky drinks at the pub; less time for things like flowers to wilt and it can be a bit cooler for the wedding ceremony if it is a really hot day.

Late weddings

A wedding at 4pm or later, takes a lot of pressure off, when getting ready for your wedding. You will have a lot more time for everything. This also applies to guests, who may be travelling or have a large group to co-ordinate. It also means you can be much more certain that your guests have eaten, thereby reducing the potential catering needed to keep everyone contented.

How hungry are guests

As above, in late weddings - giving guests enough time to guarantee they have mostly had lunch can save you providing quite so much. Weddings at 2pm or later are likely to mean that your guests had a chance to eat lunch. This might mean that you don’t feel the need to provide Canapés for example. If your wedding ceremony is at 12:30pm it is then likely that guests probably didn’t have a chance for lunch, so Canapés might be a better idea in this case.

Canapés are a great crowd pleaser but are they really worth it and could you be better off spending your money elsewhere ?

We’ve tried to answer this as honestly as we can to help you make an informed decision.

Canapés are usually priced anywhere from around £10 upwards per guest for around 3 to 4 canapés per guest.

Things to consider are your timings, your wedding breakfast, and your guests.

Reasons to say YES to canapés… If your timings mean that guests are unlikely to get lunch before the ceremony, then canapés are usually snapped up. If you have a long time (more that an hour) between the ceremony and the wedding breakfast, canapés will keep guests going and stop them getting too tipsy. If your guests are foodies they will enjoy the excitement that canapés bring. And finally - they are delicious!

Reasons you may not need canapés... If your ceremony is later in the afternoon, guests should have had lunch, or if you have a shorter time between ceremony and wedding breakfast then canapés may not be required. Many guests will anticipate the wedding breakfast ahead and want to ‘save themselves’ for that, so even if you do have canapés most guests will have a limit as to how many they will eat. Finally if you know it is a big wedding breakfast ahead, such as sharing or grazing styles, canapés might be an over indulgence - ask your caterer for their honest opinion on what they have seen at previous weddings.

Remember, weddings are emotional and are often long, with an early start and a lot of standing so guests tend to eat and drink a lot more than they would usually, and canapés can be a delightful way to keep guests energy levels and excitement high.

Choice menus are where two or more options are offered per course, for your guests to choose in advance.

Offering a choice menu is a lovely thing to do for guests and adds to the experience for them. However, it brings extra requirements to your admin and guest management, as well as to us in extra preparation of several different dishes and on the day with service too. It is for this reason why there is a supplementary cost. So it is worth talking through the pros and cons before deciding.

Reasons for a choice menu:

• A choice menu may be very important to you, and is something you are set on offering to guests.

• Guests will love the process of thinking about and choosing their choice and it will create an early buzz around the day.

• There is a little more of a restaurant feel to the service and guests may feel a little more spoilt on the day.

• You feel more confident knowing that all your guests will enjoy the dish served on the big day

Reasons against a choice menu:

• A choice menu can slow down service due to the added time taken to plate up different dishes for each table.

• Guests sometimes forget what they chose and may request a different choice - it is likely that only limited extra portions of each dish will be available and so its possible the caterer would need to say no to the guest that is asking or say yes, but risk not having enough for guests on subsequent tables.

• Guests sometimes move places, so the dishes sent to a table may be the wrong set of choices causing delay and / or confusion.

• A choice menu gives a couple additional work, to send out the choices, manage and chase guest’s replies, and getting the choices over to the caterer all takes time.

The choice is yours, give us call if you have any questions!

Wedding planners and those in the Wedding world just love an ACRONYM!

B2B = Bride to be

H2B = Husband to be

MoB = Mother of Bride

FoB = Father of Bride

MoG = Mother of Groom

FoG = Father of Groom

F&B = Food and Beverage

(F)BIL = (Future) Brother in Law

FNF = Friends and Family

SO = Significant Other

SSM = Same Sex Marriage

+1 = Annoying Extra Guest to Pay For

DPS = Designated Premises Supervisor (the ultimate person with responsibility to ensure guests are drinking responsibly and within the law (i.e. no underage drinking etc)

The price per head will include the menu quoted for, VAT, crockery & cutlery, serving staff, event manager and of course a chef team.

If you would like to add extras, such as a drinks package/corkage, bread selection, tea and coffee or linen please speak with us directly for more information.

We offer a wide range of drinks packages which include welcome drinks, wine with dinner and a fizz for toasting speeches with. Custom packages can be built and of course specific wines, spirits or soft drinks can also be sourced.

Alternatively we can provide a drinks service (AKA corkage) to serve your own beverages throughout your reception, from arrival to speeches, (or end of the wedding breakfast). We provide a complete service, hiring a drinks trailer, glassware, additional staff, equipment and ice!

Please get in touch for prices!

Yes!

We offer a huge variety of stock, great bar staff, all the necessary equipment, refrigeration and glassware too!

Our prices are very sensible, similar to those you would find in any bar or pub here in the North!

We can run a full cash/card bar or a pre-paid service. There are lots of additional options as well, for example you can prepay for a certain amount of drinks, or apply a prepay to a limited range of drinks (e.g. beer and wine only), or you could cover the cost of a his & hers cocktail to be ready after the meal for guests to kick off the evening do. Almost anything is possible!

We carefully plan our bars, so they are well stocked and efficiently organised to minimise waiting and ensure every guest gets their perfect drink, ice cold. We stock a wide range of drinks, however, the bar menu can be customised with your own favourites.

Absolutely!!

We will ensure all allergen and dietary requirements are catered for. We will always offer high quality alternative dishes for you and your guests in keeping with your chosen menu at no extra cost.

You would simply send us a list of guests with specific requirements and we will tweak dishes to suit (or suggest alternative options).

In short - Anything!

If you’re not wanting a formal 3 course meal, we offer BBQ’s, Carving Joints, Tapas, Afternoon Tea, all of which are served “family style” - boards, platters and bowls served to the centre of each dining table for guests to tuck in to!

Even less formal, you may not have dining tables at all, in which case we can offer a range of Canapes, Street Food, Grazing Tables and Supper options to keep you and your guests fed!

We also welcome your own ideas and love to create bespoke menus. To date we have created fully Vegan weddings, Persian Feasts, a Brunch themed wedding breakfast, and Thai banquets too. We have also been entrusted with cherished family recipes!

There really are no limits so please do get in touch to discuss your ideas.

For marquee weddings and events, we will hire all kitchen equipment for the day which will be added to your quote. We do require the catering tent (hopefully joined to the main marquee), power, tables and lighting to be provided, which most marquee companies would offer. But we will take care of the rest!

Of course!

We offer a range of substantial street food dishes as well as other popular options such as Ploughman’s Tables, Paella and our Taco station. If you have any requests or would like more information please get in touch.