Anyone want to give me some feedback on our wedding menu?

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So, after the ceremony, we'll have a drinks reception. Prosecco, beers, Kir Imperials and mulled cider. Canapés - mini goats cheese tarts with caramelised onion, mini Yorkshire puddings with roast beef and horseradish, smoked salmon on wholegrain bread with chive creme fraiche, and crostini topped with black pudding and caramelised red onion.

Starter - crab and cheddar tart or vegetable soup (we will have a few fussy eaters so the veggie soup is a safe option for them).

Main - choice of fillet steak with colcannon and red wine gravy. Or Pancetta wrapped breast of chicken with stuffing, gravy, and roast potatoes. Or sea bass with roasted vine cherry tomatoes and roasted crushed potatoes.

All will be served with vegetables.

Dessert will be apple crumble and custard.

There will also be vegetarian and coeliac options.

Are we overlooking anything? Would you eat it? We've got some very fussy eaters, so want to make sure they will eat something, but also don't want the menu to be too boring.

I can't stand Crab (or Lobster). I would be very worried when the starter came out, are you going to have people choose their options before hand (or have the airline situation where the only thing you can eat has run out before they get to you?).
Also really publicise the soft drinks - my DS 18 got very thirsty at a wedding as he doesn't drink alcohol or water and didn't realise there were other options.
Also depending on the time of day so how hungry people might be more substantial canapies might be appreciated.
I would also go for a veggie main course rather than fish.
And maybe a fruit salad as a back up pudding? Some people don't like ice cream.

Where's my invite????? a wedding with real food!!!!!!

I like seafood but think your risking it with people not being keen on crab.

Your pud is after what looks like a decent menu for a wedding because they are often dire a very dull one and a bit too heavy.

All sounds yummy to me! And I'm a dairy-intolerant fussy eater! I would just avoid the cheesey canapés and starters. The steak option sounds delicious

I personally dont think much of the canapes as i dont like goats cheese, horseradish or smoked salmon.
Everything else sounds delicious though!

Will you also be serving the wedding cake?

Sounds very delicious except for the pudding- I hate apple crumble and custard.

After the rest of your menu it sort of doesn't fit...you need something more refined?

Lemon posset with raspberries
Chocolate roulade
Raw cocoa tart with cream and berries
Eaton mess

Your food sounds fabulous. I would change the soup and the pudding.

There are lots of wonderful vegetable soups to choose from roasted parsnip and honey, butternut squash, tomato and basil etc etc.

Apple crumble with custard is very school dinnerish and stodgy, perhaps something simple like lemon tart and raspberries or crime brûlée?

Or even creme brûlée!

Crumble haters! What is wrong with you?

The entire meal sounds delicious, but rather stodgy. I would replace the crab tart starter with something a little lighter, and I agree that there are a lot of people who dislike crab, and offer another option for dessert.

You can't please all of the people all of the time, and you won't be able to satisfy the fussy eaters, but it looks like you have most bases covered.

I'm not sure how popular mulled cider would be either.

What time of year will this be? I'd also avoid the crumble, personally.

We had two choices for each course, one was vegetarian and the other not (don't know any vegans and everything could be modified for coeliacs). We made sure to choose them as both being things that people would like to order, it wasn't an obvious 'oh, veggie!' option. We ended up with a 50/50 split in the end!

Agree that you need something a little lighter to finish - how about French apple tart with a calvados sorbet or similar?

I think it's a nice selection OP. You'll never please all the people all the time, but I would be very happy to go to a wedding with your menu.

Oh, if you wanted to you could swap the black pudding canapé for a warm salad of black pudding, crisp streaky bacon and a poached egg as a starter instead of the crab? On rocket or watercress?

Your mains and dessert would definitely make me happy! I love a hot dessert and crumble is one of my favourites.

I agree with PP about vegetable soup being a bit non-descript. A specific vegetable soup such as leek and potato, tomato and basil, carrot and coriander, etc. would be far more appealing.

Like Vajazzler, I wouldn't enjoy any of your canapes for the exact same reasons. I am not a particularly fussy eater, I didn't think, but I would struggle here. Goats cheese is very divisive and as the only vegetarian option, I think you should aim for something more widely liked.

I'm also wondering if you're having any children at the wedding as again, I'm not sure how much the canapes would appeal to them and they're likely to get grouchy if they are having to wait hours between ceremony and meal without anything to nibble on. I assume they have a separate kids menu for the sit down bit.

I think both the goats cheese and the black pudding canapes are a bit on the marmite side, but that may be just me. I eat most things but goats cheese and black pudding are both on my no list, and I have met lots of people who dislike at least one of them. There are foods I don't love, but those are two things that I would outright refuse to eat. The roast beef sounds good, but discuss how rare it will be served; some people will be put off by very pink beef. The fact that you say you have fussy eaters would lead me to suggest that you think about swapping one of the canapes for something less challenging. I like the sound of the rest of the meal though. I have to suggest that the suggestion of a warm salad of black pudding above is even less likely to appeal to fussy eaters imo so a named vegetable soup would be popular, but please not carrot and coriander, duller than Dullsville on a dull day.

Does your veggie 'option' (hate that, as it's not a choice if you're vegetarian) have the same 'weight' iyswim as fillet steak? Something the chef's thought about?

Could there be 2 veggie mains?

And veg soup as a starter is so meh.

Sorry.

I would keep the veg soup, we had this because when we tried to get a specific soup we had
Don't like tomatoes
Don't like parsnip
Don't like coriander
Don't like leek
Don't like mushrooms

And a few more I think, all of the above were happy with veg soup though, it may have a bit of leek or parsnip or something (tomato and mushroom not normally found in a veg soup) but mixed with everything else it was fine. This was a very popular option (middle of winter, nice warming option!) And not one person complained about it. We did ask the chef to make sure cauliflower wasn't used though as that was an allergy rather than a dislike, and he was fine with that, he could pretty much do anything else with it

Yy to all those who've had horrifying experiences as vegetarians at weddings - faced with a veggie 'lasagne' which looked like a plateful of vomit, my DP and I did actually once go out and get a quick Chinese meal in the local town during the speeches, because we'd travelled a long way, had had nothing to eat since about 7 am, and were starving by 5 pm. This being smalltown Ireland, I feel sure the two strangers in wedding clothes nipping in were noticed and it relayed back to the bride and groom, which may explain why we've never heard from them again...

I agree that crumble, while I do like it, is an unexciting 'something you knock up at home on a Tuesday night because you have some fruit going slightly past its best' kind of dessert, and pretty stodgy after a big meal...?

Canapés - mini goats cheese tarts with caramelised onion, mini Yorkshire puddings with roast beef and horseradish, smoked salmon on wholegrain bread with chive creme fraiche, and crostini topped with black pudding and caramelised red onion.

I find that cocktail sausages with honey and mustard glaze are always a winner, similarly chicken satay skewers. They don't sound glamorous but they go down a storm. Another thing that people seem to like is prawn with Asian dip

Starter - crab and cheddar tart or vegetable soup (we will have a few fussy eaters so the veggie soup is a safe option for them).
crab & cheddar tart is quite polarising (I would LOVE it). Might be better to do a more crowd-friendly number? Pea & mint soup is usually a winner too

Main - choice of fillet steak with colcannon and red wine gravy. Or Pancetta wrapped breast of chicken with stuffing, gravy, and roast potatoes. Or sea bass with roasted vine cherry tomatoes and roasted crushed potatoes.
love the sound of these

All will be served with vegetables.

Dessert will be apple crumble and custard.
something lighter as the others have mentioned?

All sounds lovely, but personally I'd be disappointed with the starter, I'm not a fan of crab, and veg soup is dull.

Canapés sound amazing!

This is very fancy for a wedding menu.

Most are just chicken.

Whether it's appropriate depends on the size of the party. If it's up to 20odd people you can check with them individually but if it's a big crowd (50-200) to a certain extent you need a bland menu to make sure most people are actually fed!

Some of your menu choices are really naice food but a wedding really isn't the best occasion for this as a lot of things like goats cheese/crab/black pudding are 'marmite' foods which a lot of people won't like.

Plus it must be very expensive! guests tend to prefer more free alcohol

Sounds wonderful. I'd eat the lot and be very happy.

This guest would prefer to have a nice meal.

As a fussy eater I would not be able to each much of this menu. Even the fillet steak would be ruined for me if it is served already doused in gravy.

How about crudite (carrot sticks etc.) with relishes such as olives and pickles, and some mainstream cheese like cheddar during the appetizer period? And instead of vegetable soup perhaps a green salad? Or if you want them to have a savory starter, a cheddar tart without crab?

It sounds very nice and admittedly would be frustrating to dumb everything down to the most boring palate but honestly most of what you describe would not be edible to me.