Wedding breakfast- choice of meal?

[tan28]

Hey everyone.
Currently in talks with our catering company.... who are suggesting we give people the option to pick from a few starters/ mains & pudding.
They charge an extra £5 for that.
However every wedding we have attended we just got given one option and we had no issues with that.
My plan is to pick a set menu & a vegan option for our vegetarian/ vegan friends.
AIBU towards our guests? Should we offer them the option to choose what they want to eat? Our caterer wants a reply by tonight and I'm questioning myself now
TIA x

Ugh, really sorry - I've posted this on the wrong thread. Have self-reported!

This is why I always take sandwiches to weddings. (I’m a lifelong vegetarian who can’t stomach goats cheese or coffee (thus the ubiquitous tiramisu)).

Of all the weddings I have been to, two stand out years later:

1 - the one with no food whatsoever.
2 - the one with copious amounts of really good food served as a buffet, so everyone could try everything. The groom was a massive foodie, and wanted everybody to try everything!

The other chicken. breasts, salmon steaks and bloody puff pastry/goat’s cheese/aubergine towers and torpedo carots just disappear into mediocrity.

We did a buffet to avoid this, Carvery, with lots of salads, roast potatoes, chips for the kids and a really nice veggie option and the whole thing was gluten free as 2 guests were coeliac.

It was posh and lovely!

I am so surprised by vegetarians being annoyed about being given the vegan option. It's one meal!!! And vegan food is often very tasty anyway.
I say this a s a vegetarian myself, I really wouldn't care.

In my experience the more formal (expensive) venues have one set menu and the more casual venues have a choice. I think either is fine. Will the guests have a choice before the day or will they choose on the day?

@PurpleFlower1983

In my experience the more formal (expensive) venues have one set menu and the more casual venues have a choice. I think either is fine. Will the guests have a choice before the day or will they choose on the day?

Would disagree with this. Usually the cheaper hotels offer once choice and boutique, more expensive venues cater for choices. My own wedding was a (very, eek!!) expensive venue and we decided with the caters on a menu which offered three choices.

@parrotonthesofa

I am so surprised by vegetarians being annoyed about being given the vegan option. It's one meal!!! And vegan food is often very tasty anyway. I say this a s a vegetarian myself, I really wouldn't care.

They are no more irritated than an omnivore wouid be at being given a vegan meal

If it's fine to give some people a meal made from a narrower range of possible ingredients, then it's fine all round. And reduced expense as only one option is needed. Win all round.

Though of course perhaps some people wouldn't like it - whether omnivore or vegetarian - and it's just as understandable for both

Set menu is fine and the norm. No one will expect anything different. However, if you can afford the extra £ do it. It’s a really nice touch. Our guests had the option of 4 meals and everyone commented on what a nice idea it was.
(But it will be totally fine with a set menu!).

Ooooo I really want to know your menu at £120pp! We had 4 courses including rib of beef and lobster and were £65pp, I’d love to know your menu if you’d share?!
I know you’ll have decided already, but Iv never been to a wedding with a choice (apart from the high level qu. of vegan, vege, meat, dietary reqs) - the management of getting peoples orders in wouldn’t be fun for you!

If you do have a buffet make sure the veggies/vegans/special diets get invited up first so they get a decent chance to get enough of what they can eat. Nothing worse than getting left with just a choice of what the omnivores didn't fancy if you're one of the last tables to be called.

I’ve only been to one wedding where you didn’t choose from a menu, just ticked if you were vegetarian. The vegetarian option turned out to be the same starter as the children, carrot sticks and dip, the main was a slice of cauliflower with cauliflower puree, pudding was cucumber and mint crushed ice with a strawberry. The meat eaters had a carvery set out on each table, the vegetarians were supposed to eat the same veg, but it was on the same platter as the meat and three of the vegetable options were cooked in animal fat.

We had choice at our wedding, we asked the venue to have their usual menu available so guests could order on the day.

As a vegetarian with a really restricted diet (autistic - lots of sensory needs etc.) I actually think you're being too much of a people-pleaser, OP.

I tend not to like vegan options (I have dairy and/or eggs in pretty much every meals and snack I ever eat) but can see how much easier it is to provide one for all non-omnivore guests and wouldn't resent it at all.

Then again, being so restricted means I tend to just assume I won't like any of the food when I go to weddings/Christmas meals etc. and eat beforehand/take snacks etc.

You'll never please everyone...

Hi there, I think for ours, we offered everyone the meat option along with the vegetarian option. They felt like they had two choices

I don’t get the veggie/vegan meal argument.

I’ve been too three weddings in the last year.

Wedding one, the meal was mushroom pate and crusty bread for the starter, the main was a nut roast with roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips and broccoli. Desert was strawberries and champagne jelly with cream if you wanted it.

Wedding two was melon for a starter, butternut squash and mushroom ravioli with sage butter and help yourself to vegetable sides as a main and sorbet for dessert.

Wedding three was a poached pear and walnut salad for the starter, a roasted vegetable wellington thing, with roast potatoes and veg, desert was chocolate brownie.

All three were the veggie/vegan option, and nobody complained, quite a few omnivores chose the veggie option at all three weddings.

I don’t understand why so many veggie people have such disdain for increase in vegan option, I get that a lot of people don’t like vegan cheese, neither do I, but surly more option are just more meat free options for everyone.

@tan28 I’m a veggie and I’d be happy with a single veggie/vegan option as long as it’s a good one and has no vegan cheese.

@Flatandhappy

In Oz "alternate serve" is a thing, so it might be beef/chicken or chicken/fish, you get what is put in front of you then it is up to you to negotiate with your neighbours if you want to swap. There will usually be the option for any event to say if you need veggie, vegan, halal etc. I can totally understand it for a wedding where I am just very grateful for an invite and a nice meal but if you pay a lot of money for an event and you are presented with something you don't want to eat while eyeing your neighbour's lovely meal it's a bummer.

@Flatandhappy

I'm intrigued by this

Waiters plonk a selection of meals on the table, and you swap with your neighbour if you don't fancy what you were served?

What if everyone is eyeing up my plate of chicken, and I don't want to share?

I'd happily eat all three of those meals VioletPetals, but I wouldn't expect butternut squash and mushroom ravioli with sage butter, or chocolate brownie, to be vegan.

I don't mind eating vegan food, but I prefer something that's 'naturally' vegan, rather than something that's using lots of replacement elements.

Although I still think it's more of an issue when one meal is chosen to be the nut-free/gluten-free/dairy-free/vegetarian/vegan option. Then it does seem very restricted!

I (as a veggie) have absolutely no issue with creative and cheffy vegan meals - delicious. It's when you get the crappy half hearted melon to start, something with just a watery tomato sauce and no protein for main and fruit salad for dessert.

@Squishmael

I (as a veggie) have absolutely no issue with creative and cheffy vegan meals - delicious. It's when you get the crappy half hearted melon to start, something with just a watery tomato sauce and no protein for main and fruit salad for dessert.

Or a stack of aubergine and courgette slices, which you know are being charged at the same rate at the lamb shanks! I went to a black tie awards ceremony recently. Veggie main was half a roast cauliflower. Bit of spice rubbed on. That’s all. No carbs, no sauce, no other veg.

Every wedding I've been to has had a choice, usually beef or chicken for the majority of guests. Then an option to meet veg/vegan dietary choices.

Vegetarian guests might not prefer a vegan option, the same way omnivories might not like the meat dishes on offer, but thats life with a set menu. I wouldn't spend extra money for separate veg and vegan courses unless you are catering for a significant number of veg(an) guests.

You are not going to be able to please everyone, save yourself some stress and don't try to.

@PolkadotsAndMoonbeams

I'd happily eat all three of those meals VioletPetals, but I wouldn't expect butternut squash and mushroom ravioli with sage butter, or chocolate brownie, to be vegan.

I don't mind eating vegan food, but I prefer something that's 'naturally' vegan, rather than something that's using lots of replacement elements.

Although I still think it's more of an issue when one meal is chosen to be the nut-free/gluten-free/dairy-free/vegetarian/vegan option. Then it does seem very restricted!

I don’t like meat replacement or imitation things either, I’d much prefer something plant based to something trying to be an alternative.

I’m pretty sure I remember the sage butter was coconut fats and the chocolate brownie was dark chocolate and nut milk and baking powder instead of eggs,
(they were so good I got the recipe from the caterers)

Definitely too much people pleasing. Pick one for each and have done. It's YOUR wedding, nobody else's.

You'll never please everyone...

Never a truer word spoken

Every wedding I've been to has had a choice

This fascinates me.
I have been to literally dozens upon dozens of weddings celebrated by people from a real range of backgrounds. Wedding that have been tiny, to quite large weddings. Wedding with tiny budgets to much larger budgets. A choice of meal has never been a thing (other than from a buffet, and one where they ordered in from the local chippy and you could choose from a choice of 3 what you had with your chips). I've been to hog roast, I've been to traditional sit down same meal for all, I've been to two 'afternoon tea' Receptions, I love MN for hearing from people who do things completely differently from my experience, and really expanding my mind, but find it really odd that for some people every wedding give a choice when it is something I have literally not come across, despite having been to weddings of people outside of our families, and even the odd wedding of dh's colleagues where I didn't know people particularly, so way outside my circle of friends too.

Anyone any idea if it is a regional thing or what circle it might be that always offers a choice?

@Kite22 I could have written your post myself. It's strange, isn't it?

Can you offer everyone the meat or vege choice and tell your caterer you will confirm how many vegetarians there are closer to the time?

That way you will give people a bit of choice but don't have to pay the £5 per head.

The vegan / veggie complaints I get. A lot of the time when eating out, what used to be veggie is now vegan. But could really benefit from egg/cheese/cream. So the veggies feel a bit hard done by. As an omnivore who often picked veggie, I've started eating more chicken burgers for example as I don't want a fake meat burger, but the bean burger with cheese isn't there.
So, yes, it's good that vegans get options, but we shouldn't pretend that it hasn't made things slightly worse for veggies.