Critique my catering plan

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Give me your most viperish take - I’ve got 18 months to sort this.

Plan: early June. 2pm ceremony, 2.45/3pm reception. Gorgeous huge local garden, marquee/stretch tent for cover as needed. Seats and occasional tables scattered about. Circulating staff facilitating the food. Vintage china (hired). Buffet food tables/tablecloths.

Fizz on arrival (cremant de Loire) or sparkling elderflower. Jugs of water available.

Cocktail bar making jugs of 4 different cocktails for the staff to circulate- likely Pimm’s, a gin cocktail and 2 nonalcoholic ones.

Vegetarian sandwiches from local sandwich place: cheddar and chutney, Brie and grape, roasted veg &hummus, cucumber.

Crudites and 2 dips, probably tsatziki and hummus again.

Cake: 2 mini scones per guest with clotted cream and jam (300 scones). Choice of rich chocolate cake, lemon drizzle, Victoria sponge with strawberries and cream. Additional gluten free and vegan option depending on numbers needing this.

Wedding cake bought from local
cake maker: fruit cake layer, gluten free layer, vegan layer.

Also plain strawberries with/without cream on offer (the venue is a farm that does pick your own strawberries).

Big question: is it crazy to think I could make the scones and basic cakes myself and freeze them over the months, and hire someone to defrost them over the previous 24 hours, ice them and manage them on the day? Money isn’t necessarily the issue so much as preferring my own baking. 300 mini scones, 10 each of the large cakes above.

Agree . All GF food prepared,stored and served separately from other food to avoid cross contamination. Otherwise it sounds perfect.

I would say have beers also on arrival for those that don’t like the wine offering (I love your choice of Cremant de Loire)

There’s loads of cake but not enough savoury stuff. I wouldn’t like any of those sandwiches. Could you add scotch eggs, quiche, vol-au-vants, cheese straws etc. I’d add another cocktail- Buck’s Fizz would be easy.

Are there places nearby where guests can buy their own dinner at 6pm, when it's over?

I went to a 2pm wedding that took 4 hours to get to so no time for lunch. There were just trays of tiny sandwiches and tiny cakes being bought round. Everyone was starving and got very drunk. There was nowhere to sit. There wasn’t an evening reception so we spent most of the afternoon wondering when the food was coming. The wedding was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Please read the OP's updates.
It is a vegetarian afternoon tea, and the OP is adding more savoury stuff.

The fact that you don't like any of the delicious sounding sandwiches is irrelevant.

Sorry but I would be so disappointed if this was all the food I got at a wedding. I have never been to a wedding with out a sit down meal. Also why is everything veggie? If your guests aren’t vegetarian then this is not great.

If it were me I would hugely prefer a buffet of hot food and salads. I would rather have this than have alcohol provided. Also some people (me and DH) wouldn’t ever eat an AR because we much prefer savoury over sweet

If only it was possible to take food with you for a long journey or buy it in the way, you wouldn't have had to go through that.

Would you really make a 6-hour round trip for a ceremony and afternoon tea that last, in total, 4 hours? Because I wouldn't. Some of the posts about not being able to eat outside of set meal times are OTT, but I do know (or have known - thankfully they're out my life now) people who are like that and OP did ask for opinions, so it's not unreasonable for people to raise it.

Well. It's a good job you aren't invited then

For goodness sake one afternoon tea with lots of food isn't going to hurt you if there is no meat. You don't eat meat at every single meal, do you?

I take a packed lunch for work, I don't expect to have to do it for a wedding. I think that's the point. People could, but as a host why would you ask them to?

I’m not sure I’d do pizza if it’s an afternoon tea you’re going for.
what about some other savoury options? Sausage rolls, quiche, mini pies or cheese scones? That with sandwiches and all your cake options sounds perfect.
Honestly your wedding sounds perfect. I think 4 hours is enough

You're not asking anyone to do so. If you can't cope with having an early lunch or brunch at about 11 and then enjoying a substantial afternoon tea a few hours later that leaves you with plenty of time to get dinner on your own terms after the event if you are still hungry then you really are creating problems and deciding they are someone else's fault.

Lots of events require a bit of additional planning about meal times if you are that bothered about them. Days out, theatre trips, children's parties at weird times, travelling, being on holiday as well as the actual travel bit.

Are people really that obsessed with eating specific meals at set times that weddings are so distressing to them?

Would you really make a 6-hour round trip for a ceremony and afternoon tea that last, in total, 4 hours?
Yes, I'd make a weekend of it. It sounds lovely. I like weddings. I like my friends who have invited me to their weddings.

OP you need 2-6 on invites stating that celebrations end at 6 allowing guests
to plan driving home or book up an evening meal plus sleep over once they leave.
June can be freezing.
You need 2 vats of different soup- so easy to make and so filling. Serve in mugs to sip if you’re not doing enough tables to seat everyone (and make soup slightly runnier/drinkable). Have different types of bread to dip in soup are appealing and again filling.
The whole lot freezes if left overs too.

👏👏👏

This is yet another thread where MN posters go out of their way to be offended and upset about being invited to weddings.

I think (hope) most people will be happy to be invited because they care about the person and will just go along with whatever’s happening for a few hours of their day without stressing about it. No drama, no one starving because they can’t live without meat for four hours or because they can only eat at set times or they will self combust, just turning up and going with the flow.

It's an afternoon tea @Wreckinball not lunch.

Exactly @Clefable . It must be exhausting to be the type of person who is so inflexible about not getting meat at every meal and being so rigid about meal times.

I hope the OP won't have such guestzillas at her wedding.

I would love to go to a wedding like this.

Why would you want dinner straight after a generous afternoon tea?.

Why would she serve soup? There's plenty of food, plus it's in June.

OP, I think your timing & afternoon tea plan sound lovely, and for what it's worth, I'd be perfectly happy to drive 3-4 hours, have a packed lunch before your ceremony (so I'm not reliant on slow service in a pub) and roll with it all being veggie to suit the groom's preference.

Appreciate that you've taken on board that some guests will have a fuller appetite than a 56 year old woman.

It does all sound very, very carb-y though (and I say that as someone without a carb hang up and not a single keto/atkins vein in my body!)

Someone suggested devilled eggs, which would work - if perhaps a bit niche? Quiche also a good recurring suggestion.

How about also some falafel to go with dips (hummus, pea & mint, spicy labneh)? A couple of protein-led salads may also help eg a bean based salad, something like feta/watermelon/olive and something like quinoa/cucumber/roasted peppers/cherry tomatoes perhaps? The backup option of a lentil & veg soup if it ends up poor weather isn't a bad idea.

Maybe that would be most people's idea of hell & they'd far prefer a beige & sugar buffet? - but they always leave me chewing my arm off & feeling hungrier than when I started!

Hope the weather is kind to you & you have a wonderful day celebrating, whatever you land on for catering. Congratulations 💍

Yes, I'd make a 6hr round trip for a wedding. In fact, I've travelled further for weddings than that. Stopped at motorway services for refreshments etc.

I once drove 4 hours to a cousin's wedding. I stopped at the motorway services.

"guestzillas" 😂
Great term!
This will freak some posters out, but I once went to a Malaysian wedding and ate food that I'd never even tried before!

It's sandwiches, scones and cake at 2.45pm...I think I'd still need a dinner that evening especially if I had to travel.

It sounds fantastic. The invitation sounds clear and tbh it sounds lovely to have a wedding that doesn’t go on all night. Elderflower, tea and coffee went down very well at ours - lots of people didn’t want to start the drinking quite that early.

if you want to do something homemade but less last minute you could make the elderflower cordial (late April usually) and that would store well.

Viper take: I have IBS and could eat almost none of that except the strawberries. Most GF bread / cake / pizza dough is made with substitute flour blends that just aren’t nice and/or that I react to after more than a slice so a whole afternoon based on wheat substitutes wouldn’t be great. The thing that would make me happiest for an afternoon tea style spread would be a cheese board with oatcakes, apples, celery, grapes - all naturally GF without odd ingredients.

The Claudia Roden orange cake is amazing though and no fake flour involved - maybe one to consider including.

No it's not, if you read the updates, it's a generous buffet which goes on until 6pm.
I'd probably want something later after I got home, say 10pm, but not straight away.