10.1 Introduction
The catering can make or break an event.A bad photographer might be disappointing and a bad speech might be annoying but a bad caterer? They can send wedding guests to the hospital. If you’re considering catering options, you need to stick to quality options.
Hence, there are a few things to remember about food at most weddings. Traditionally, most guests expected some kind of chicken or fish option and nothing more. But now, some couples are now putting a greater emphasis on food. In some weddings, even the theme can be revolved around the food in itself. This is especially true when the couple are a pair of ‘foodies’ themselves.
Part of your job as a wedding planner will be to help the happy couple’s foodie dreams come true. However, you may also be tasked with finding ways of feeding people within a strict budget.
Whether they’re serving only a cake and champagne reception, or they want to bring in a whole hog for roasting, you need to help connect the couple to the right caterer and help them make the right planning decisions.
10.2 Choosing a Caterer
As a wedding planner, it will benefit you to have a handful of caterers that you can vouch for.Having these vendors on hand will help you get a jump start on recommending a good caterer, if not the right one.
But, before you make a recommendation, you need to know what ideas the couple has in mind for food. For example, if the couple wants to throw a vegan wedding, you would do best to find a caterer that can produce vegan events. Delivering boring vegan-friendly food is not what the couple wants on their wedding day. They want to eat a delicious meal.
You will also need to find out what kind of meal they want to have. You will need to find out if they want to have canapés, dinner, dessert or all of the above.
Finally, you will need to figure out if the couple has any dietary requirements. While vegan catering falls into special dietary requirements, other requirements could include religious observances, allergies and diseases that all require special adaptations.
FACT
The average number of calories consumed by 120 guests during a typical wedding is 256,920!
Source: bridesmagazine.co.uk10.3 Common Dietary Requirements
The dietary requirements that are required from the caterer will vary based on the couple’s needs and sometimes on the wedding guests.In some cases, guests may note any dietary requirements when they RSVP to the wedding. This is especially true if the requirement is an urgent or dangerous allergy. For example, if one of the guests is deathly allergic to peanuts, the couple may choose to tell the caterer to leave peanuts out of everything cooked for the wedding.
There are three big types of dietary requirements: disease related, religious and cultural.
Disease Related Dietary Requirements
These dietary requirements are often non-negotiable for those who suffer from them. There are many food allergies that can send an unsuspecting wedding guest to the hospital. However, if the allergies are very severe, the guests will often be aware of them and know how to navigate eating in public without getting sick.
Some of the most common allergens include:- Peanuts
- Lactose
- Gluten
- Soy
- Other nuts
- Pitted fruits
- Strawberries
You may also encounter diabetic dietary requirements. Again, those with diabetes will be aware of how to eat around their disease when out in public. However, if the bride or a significant portion of the guests has diabetes, it is worth offering sugar-free options for these guests.
Religious Dietary Requirements
A wedding isn’t an airplane. Guests will usually not be able to simply sign up for kosher or halal meals when they RSVP. However, if the couple or their family practices a religion with strict dietary requirements and is holding a traditional wedding, you need to be able to find a caterer who can handle these requests.
It is worth becoming familiar with some of the main religious dietary laws. The most well-known law for both halal and kosher meals is that they do not allow the consumption of pork or pork products.
One of the biggest distinctions that separates kosher meals from other meals is that these meals must also be cooked in a kosher kitchen. This will usually be advertised by the kosher caterers.
However, the extent to which the client wants to cater their meals to different religious laws will depend on them. It is always worth discussing this prior to booking a caterer.
Finally, it is also worth noting that you will often encounter Hindu religious food laws. The most important thing to know about Hindu laws is that they are often vegetarian.
Cultural Dietary Requirements
The two biggest cultural dietary requirements are vegetarianism and veganism.
The couple may choose to offer some vegetarian options in their wedding buffet or as a part of their wedding meal. But you do not need to feel obliged to accommodate singular guests. Most of them will be familiar with finding food that fits their lifestyle in a party setting.
10.4 Finding Great Catering for Your Budget
There are many areas of wedding planning where you can stand to trim the fat and no one will notice.While you need to find a caterer who fits within the budget, it is often in the couple’s best interests to allocate a reasonable amount of money to the catering budget in the first place.
You do not need to spend half of the wedding budget on catering every time. However, if you go for the cheapest caterer based on price alone, you will often find mediocre food. You also risk event disaster if you serve poorly cooked food.
This is where having a trusted list of caterer’s comes in. The more you work with a specific group of caterers, the easier it will be to negotiate with them. If you throw a number of weddings their way, they will often be happier to accommodate special requests, within reason.
Negotiate
If the budget is very tight, this is where you need to start to negotiate. There are two ways you can negotiate as a wedding planner. First and foremost, you need to negotiate with service providers over their prices, as well as the type of service they can provide. This means you might find a caterer who can work within budget, but doesn’t offer everything the bride and groom wants. Using your powers of negotiation, you can try to convince them to factor in those missing services.
The second way you can negotiate is to liaise with the bride and groom. Only do this when you’ve explored your other negotiation avenues. Put forward ideas to them that almost meet all of their expectations, and see how they feel about them.
If the bride and groom are on a really tight budget, you may want to consider the idea of a buffet.
Buffets often draw negative connotations, as there was once a time when they were made of soggy sandwiches and lacked inspiration. However, with the catering world becoming more and more competitive, buffets are often more inspiring.
10.5 The Main Event: The Wedding Cake
The wedding cake is more than just dessert.In many cases, it is part of the ceremony. It is also one of the few things that the couple already have pictured in their minds.
Remember that the wedding cake has changed forms over the years and is subject to trends. Although the giant six-tier wedding cakes are not gone forever, they are sometimes replaced by cupcakes, dessert bars or even tiny cakes depending on the theme of the wedding.
One of the things that this signals is that happy couples are now placing less emphasis on the cake and more on other aspects of the wedding catering – such as drinks packages. This means the cake can act as a great opportunity for you to save money. With the bride and groom’s agreement, you can cut down on the number of tiers and stay within budget.
However, if you do choose to put more emphasis on the wedding cake, you need to find a good baker. Finding a wedding cake baker is like finding a caterer, if you can develop a relationship with local bakers, you will be well on your way to securing better wedding cakes for less money.
Remember: some of the most popular wedding cake makers will be booked up months in advance. Unless the cake is a non-priority, don’t leave it until the last minute.
We will cover the wedding cake in more detail in module 11 of the course
10.6 Beverage Packages
Beverage packages are one of the biggest issues in planning wedding catering because they are so expensive and they rarely offer any value.Yet, many couples feel the pressure to provide their guests an alcohol-fuelled good time.
You will need to help your clients decide on what kind of drinks package to put together. Some clients will have no doubt that they want an open bar; though, they may not realise the expense.
There are other alternatives to the open bar. Some venues or beverage caterers will allow you to use a token system, where the happy couple can purchase a few tokens for each guest to have a free drink. After this, the guests would buy their own drinks.
Another alternative is to offer wine to all of the guests, but ask them to purchase spirits at a cash bar. Depending on the venue, the couple may even choose to purchase a keg and offer complimentary beer to guests.
In addition to choosing a beverage package, make sure that the venue you choose allows the event to serve alcohol. Some venues will have different licences and different rules, and this can vary in each city in the UK.
The average couple spends £1,187 on drink for their wedding
Source: You & Your Wedding10.7 Extras
There are plenty of ways that the couple can go the extra mile as far as food is concerned.Whether or not they choose to offer a cocktail hour will depend on the wedding day schedule as well as their budget.
The cocktail hour is very much in fashion, but salmon and blinis are slowly making their way out in some circles. A nice alternative for extras might include renting a mobile ice cream bar or other mobile food vendor service. These can add to the excitement to the wedding or develop a wedding theme even further.
Module Summary
Your clients depend on you to help them make the right decisions about their catering. Although the food doesn’t show up in pictures, finding a great caterer can add so much to a wedding.[Tweet “I just completed Module 10 of the Wedding Planning Course”]
