Let’s talk about wedding menu tastings! If you follow Mrs T Weddings on Instagram and watch our stories, you’ll have seen Constance attending lots of couples’ wedding menu tastings.
We plan weddings all across the home counties and London, and the wedding venues we work with vary as much as our couples’ guest numbers and dietary requirements. Some of our couples have specific catering needs and lots of our couples are based overseas.
We are very experienced in supporting our couples through the decision-making processes involved with finding them the best caterers and making their meal selections.
Here is an insight into finding your ideal wedding caterers, and what some of our clients have experienced at a relaxed luxury wedding menu tasting with Mrs T Weddings.
Gathering ideas
During wedding planning sessions, we focus on discovering which foods and cuisines our couples love. We’ll talk about the style of service they’re interested in and, crucially, what options are available to them at their wedding venue.
Some venues have specific catering tied in – for example in-house catering at hotels. Other wedding venues have preferred supplier lists that have a selection of caterers at a variety of price points. We will also be looking to establish if our couple want their caterers to cover drinks and cocktail menus as part of their service, or if this will be dealt with in-house or with a separate external hire.
If our couple has a dry-hire venue such as a marquee, then our options are widened and we can look at a wider pool of caterers.
We use all of this information and cross reference with our client’s preferences, budget and wedding dates. This determines a hierarchy of catering options that helps steer their decision-making.
What Mrs T Weddings looks for when curating wedding catering services:
Availability – are they available for our required dates?
Locality – how far are they from the wedding venue, and will they travel?
Style – can they accommodate the style of food and service our couple love?
Budget – do they sit in a suitable price range for our couple?
Professionalism – we want to work with caterers that have excellent reputations for their rapport with clients and their relationship with fellow suppliers. It is so integral that we are coordinated, have great communication and work well alongside each other. So, while the food must be delicious, we’ll be looking for all of these signs and signals too.
Wedding menu options
Chefs and caterers usually have two favoured approaches when it comes to wedding menu designs:
- Pre-designed menus. These offer a selection of the chef’s favourite seasonal dishes from which you can pick the ones you would like to try at your tasting.
- Personalised menus. These comprise bespoke dishes designed especially for you with your favourite foods and cuisines in mind.
When we find the caterers that are best suited to our couple, we’ll request quotes, menus and availability for a tasting session. When our couples have made their preliminary menu choices, we all come together for a formal wedding menu tasting.
At the wedding menu tasting
At Mrs T Weddings, we want our couples’ wedding menu tastings to be highly immersive. We want to create an essence of your beautiful wedding breakfast and excitement for what you and your guests will experience on your wedding day.
If your florist has availability, we organise sample arrangements of your chosen flowers at the table, along with linens, tableware and cutlery. Caterers will often serve dishes on plates that vary in colour, texture and shape, and this can completely change the presentation of the food.
This all provides the foundations to make key decisions and adjustments to your tablescaping and menu designs. At the majority of tastings, Constance will be in attendance ready to take notes and photograph the dishes, especially with our overseas couples having UK destination weddings.
Wedding menu samples
Depending on the scale and budget of the catering, our couples will taste samples of canapes, starters, mains, desserts, wine and cocktail recommendations.
It’s so important to make notes or agree a rating system for the food that you try! Remember that tastings take place many months prior to your wedding. By photographing the food you can then remember the presentation of the dish and refer back to the images if you don’t make a final decision during the tasting.
We often find that couples want to incorporate different elements from different dishes. For example, you might love the cooking of the beef dish, but really want it served with the potatoes from the lamb, and so on. It’s also important to taste a variety of wines with each of the meals so that you’re happy with the pairings you make.
Chefs and caterers will be available to talk you through every stage of the menu they have created and it’s an opportunity to make adjustments and changes with their expert knowledge.
Final decisions
Final wedding menu decisions often take place during the tasting. That said, it’s not unusual for couples to spend a few days digesting (pun intended!) This is where your notes, rating system and photographs are really important. You may be deciding on a single set menu with dietary alternative, or you might be building a choice menu for guests to select their dinner.
Our advice is the same – pick the dishes that the two of you loved. There may be lots of guests and dietaries to consider, but you should be serving food that you couldn’t wait to try and couldn’t stop thinking about and can’t wait for others to experience.
Trust your chefs and catering team. Have honest conversations with them about your likes and dislikes, the flavours and textures you love and the style of food you want served. Then, let them do what they do best! Tastings should be exciting, fun and collaborative – like any part of your wedding planning.
Need help?
If the thought of finding your wedding caterers and organising wedding menu tastings is totally overwhelming, then Mrs T Weddings can help you! Constance works with lots of couples using Mrs T Weddings wedding consultancy service to guide them through some of the biggest planning aspects of their weddings – and catering is one of them.