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.

Don't forget that the sandwiches are vegetarian so don't count as food.

Plus apparently people can't be expected to be work out for themselves that it might be a good idea to have brunch or lunch prior to a wedding starting at 2 pm.

As I said above - 8 sandwiches per person planned doesn’t equal 8 sandwiches per person in reality when it’s circulating. Standing in a blind spot? Moving positions? Going to the loo? Grabbing something from the car? You get missed! Plus there’s always the possibility that one or two fillings don’t appeal so they get passed over. Overmore, a typical afternoon tea - style finger or triangle sandwich tends to be a 1/4 or a 1/6 the size of an actual normal sandwich. So even in the unlikely event that you receive the full quota, it won’t be that much. Obviously some catering firms are better than others in this respect but you have to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

No, it almost certainly means more than 8 will be available as loads of people won't want that much.

OP said 2 rounds per person. That's 4 soices of bread, 8 sandwiches of the size you get in a catering tray from a supermarket. Loads more than most people will eat.

But some people are determined they will starve and be miserable.

Hasn't the OP said that she's going to make sure there's plenty of everything? Looking at her updates it sounds as if there is plenty of food.

It's quite extraordinary.

Plenty of guestzillas on this thread who CBA to read the OP's updates.

I would love to be invited to a wedding like this.

I can only assume that you have little experience in this to be that naive. For every nymph that won’t eat a bite, there will be some bloke taking double or more. OP clearly isn’t paying for the best so waiters/waitresses will be inexperienced students just keen to finish the job and clear their platter - never mind if all the guests have been offered their share. And rest assured the caters won’t be providing a morsel more than they are paid for.

My goodness, you sound miserable. Have you had a bad day?

I'm not going to argue modal verb usage.

Most sparkling elderflower drinks have a ridiculous amount of sugar in. They won't quench thirst and are empty calories. Diabetics ought to avoid drinks containing high levels of sugar as part of Diabetes Management whatever type of diabetes they have. If your family members are happy to chug down drinks that contain vast amounts of sugar that's up to them. I'd rather not depend on insulin or Metformin and prefer my drinks to be low or no sugar.

I’m the host far more often than I’m the guest so I don’t think I’m a guestzilla, but I hope I’m providing some useful advice for the OP, which is presumably why she started this thread in the first place.

I’ve had a great day, thanks for asking. I’m providing some insights and suggestions for the OP as she requested - have you lost sight of the point of this thread?

Sounds perfect to me and I don’t think anyone will starve if not given a 3 course dinner plus canapés in 4 hours!

I love an afternoon tea so would be quite happy 😊

No need to get personal.
I'm not going to engage with this sort of offensive nonsense.

Sorry but those sandwiches sound awful. The only nice one is the cheese and chutney. The hummus ones will be a bit dry and nasty. And there’s really not that much food. You’ll need to warn your guests that they should have lunch beforehand or make arrangements to go out to dinner, as you’re not really giving people a meal - it’s afternoon tea. Put this on the invitation to make it clear you’re not offering a sit down substantial meal.

Why this thread has deteriorated is an absolute mystery.
Vipers indeed, OP! I am done with this now as I'm not going to engage with some of the nastiness on here.
I hope your planning goes well, OP, and you have a fantastic day!
👋

It is afternoon tea. The sandwich fillings sound delicious. Not everyone is so picky, and I'm sure the OP knows what her guests like to eat. She is also doing egg mayonnaise sandwiches. Hummus isn't dry and nasty.

And there is loads of food. The OP has updated several times with additional savoury foods for the less adventurous eater.

Is your wedding next year?

Does anyone else really fancy afternoon tea now?

OP, I think a church ceremony followed by afternoon tea in an English garden in June sounds enchanting. I have read this thread with a growing sense of astonishment. Quite a fuss about lunch! And no sit-down meal! And no dinner! And no dancing! Any reasonable grown-up, invited to an afternoon tea at 3pm, would eat a huge cooked breakfast at 11am/eat an early lunch in a cafe or pub on the way/or take some food with them and eat it in the car/have bananas and yoghurt in a cool bag to eat before the ceremony or on the way home.

It's your wedding. Your guests will remember you and your soon-to-be-husband being happy and surrounded by people who matter to you most of all, not how much tahini there was in the hummus or the diameter in millimetres of the scones.

But I do think you should insist on deep pan pizza. Thin crust is hard to hold and people don't want tomato stains on their Summer frocks 😆

Typo

Exactly @IdaGlossop
This thread is being derailed by posters who lack reading comprehension, posters who are too lazy to read the OP's updates, picky eaters, meat eaters who simply can't manage one meat free meal, greedy overeaters and posters projecting their own food issues.

Thank-you @RampantIvy Long ago, when I first started going to weddings, I primed myself to be open to whatever the marrying couple had decided they wanted to do
to celebrate. So many experiences have followed that I wouldn't have had otherwise - leading the conga in the dark on the terrace of a restaurant on the slope of a Dolomite; being chatted up by an ageing, pissed Welsh farmer in a marquee; drumming in a Yorkshire church; and eating dinner in an Indian restaurant in Germany to be polite (I had an allergy to a spice commonly used in Indian cooking and feared I would throw up in the house of the bride's parents, with whom I was staying). Thank goodness people have so much freedom in how they organise things.

Might it be better to hire one of the lovely Oxford venues/pubs with a nice garden? We went to a lovely one a couple of years ago on the river. They can do the catering and drinks and you’d have a weatherproof space. They’d also have a bar so people can get their own preferred drinks. For example, I’d not drink elderflower, gin or Pimm’s but a nice crisp white wine or rose in June.

I’ve skimmed through the OP’s posts and I’m not seeing that - if you tell a caterer to provide x number sandwiches / scones/ whatever per head then that’s what they will provide, there won’t be loads extra, and the problem with food that is passed around rather than portioned and served at a table is that invariably some people will miss out on their fair share.

I think what OP suggests sounds lovely as a drinks and snacks type offering, nothing wrong with that at all. But my only suggestion was that she makes that clear to her guests beforehand so they know what to expect. Her updates suggest that she knows to do that now, so all is well.

No vegan option - have you checked dietary requirements of all the guests?

Two vegan sandwich options, vegan cake, crudités and strawberries.