London - canapés delivered ready to serve

[TolstoyAteMyHamster]

A friend is planning to get married early next year in central London and I’ve offered to help organise the catering. For various reasons she doesn’t want caterers at the reception to serve the food, but wants it just laid out for guests to serve themselves. The venue will supply drinks and glasses for us so it really is just food we are looking for.

As it’s a small event I wondered about getting canapés or finger food delivered and taking it to the reception. I would prefer not to have to plate it all up there which seems to rule out M&S and the like as I’m not sure if those could just be out out on tables. Does anyone have any recommendations for companies that will deliver plates of finger food ready to go on tables? We can take the plates etc back with us for collection the next day if needed. The budget is reasonably generous and I’d like it to be nice for them, if possible.

[YinuCeatleAyru]

I would think you'd be more likely to get what you want from a small independent catering business than from a big chain.

put in an enquiry at poptop.uk.com who can put you in touch with half a dozen potential suppliers.

be warned though. one chief function of the staff when canapes are being served is to keep the trays moving so that they don't get scoffed too quickly by a small subset of guests. with no staff you will need to provide 50%-80% more canapes than you would if there were staff.

[TolstoyAteMyHamster]

Thanks - that’s super helpful. I was thinking of recruiting a couple of local teens to pass trays around and so I think I will definitely look into that.