5 Unforgivable Wedding Breakfast Faux Pas

I have worked on over one thousand weddings and the following choices have never, ever worked well for the guests, the couple nor the caterer at a wedding breakfast.

1. Replacing Pudding with Cake
   I am evangelical about this, so much so that I have written a separate article about it - Serving Wedding Cake as Dessert.
2. Marrying Early but Eating Late
   Beware the “black hole” between the end of your ceremony and the first bite of food. If you are marrying any earlier than 3pm, your guests will not have had lunch (trust me, they won’t) and will need feeding twice. Some form of food should be made available within half an hour of your nuptials and guests should be taking their seats for the main meal within two hours of the confetti falling.
3. Changing Seats after the Starter
   If you’re intending to play musical chairs, don’t make the first move until after the main course. As a caterer and a passionate foodie, I can think of nothing worse than a beautiful dish drying out and crusting over in a hot cupboard as the post-starter speech inevitably drags.
4. A Selfishly Wacky Menu
   There is a difference between serving delicious food to delight everyone and food so unique that the majority of your guests won’t touch it. Yes you might have eaten stuffed sardines on your first date, yes I appreciate that Nigella is heralding a foie gras renaissance, but what goes uneaten goes unappreciated. Oysters, veal, foie gras, offal... proceed with caution and ask you caterer for advice. They’ll know what will leave guests full versus what will leave them famished.
5. Ice Cream in a Hot Marquee
   There is a memorable episode of BBC’s The Restaurant where one hapless duo learn the hard way that marquees don’t come with freezers. Instead of ice cream and poached pears, they end up serving lukewarm “vanilla soup” to one hundred horrified VIPs at the Hurlingham Club. Caterers can do incredible things but keeping sorbet, ice cream and frozen desserts at the necessary minus 23 degrees Celsius outdoors in the sun using only a cool box is beyond even our magic.

Article by Wedding Catering Specialist Julie Gray

Image From Wikimedia Commons

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