Wedding menu
My partner and I are getting wed in October, it's so much fun at the moment getting into the wedding planning but we could do with a little bit of advice on the food! We're both vegan so it's an easy decision that the food will be too, but we still want to try and make it as accessible as possible for everyone else.
From the beginning we've been planning a hot buffet, so that guests can see their food and make their choices. We're lucky in that our venue is completely happy to create a vegan menu for us (in fact all the venues we looked at were, which is pretty awesome considering we don't live somewhere with a big vegan community!) so we get to have a lot of input, particularly as the chef is a bit lost. We have a meeting with them next week, originally we were just going to give some ideas but it's turned into a complete menu, and one that we're feeling really good about!
It's ended up in a vaguely mexican style, as we're trying to have familiar dishes which aren't intimidating yet still interesting and full of flavour to show off vegan food, whilst also having plain stuff on offer too as my side of the family are Irish meat and potato eaters. A vegan menu is never going to be perfect for people who don't like vegetables, but hopefully it's hitting the right balance of being non-scary yet also tasty for us and our foodie friends. It's quite hard to get into one buffet but we're hoping we're almost there! However it's a bit disconcerting to have only been decided on this menu for a few days yet potentially we might tell the hotel next week that yes, we definitely want this in seven months time, so we thought getting some more feedback would be good! We could also do with another dish which we're not yet decided on, so ideas would be really helpful there as well!
So this is our potential menu:
Tortilla chips, guacamole, salsa and cherry tomatoes at tables to pick at whilst other things go on.
-
5 bean chilli
Roast Vegetables
Something else*
Jacket Potatoes
Poblano Rice
Guacamole
Salsa
Tortilla Chips
Salad
-
Fruit platter
Wedding cake (chocolate with frosting)
There will also be sweets around, plus we've got a candy floss machine planned for the evening (as a vegan alternative to a chocolate fountain!) and then we're planning to have bowls of chips (british chips that is, chunky fries rather than crisps) come out later at about 9/10pm too. We could have an evening buffet but frankly after a few hours dancing and drinking we think a bowl of chips would be ideal! But anyway, that's the 'dinner'. What do you think? Does it seem as though it works to you?
* - As for the something else, we're thinking something without chilli in, possibly something a bit more individual so it's not all slop on a plate. Fritters or battered vegetables are in the lead at the moment but if you can think of anything else we'd love to hear it!
Deep fried is good. We were also thinking about stuffed things but whatever they are, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms it's a bit blah. Wondered about vegetable kebabs, although we have roast veg. It could be pastry, something made en mass and cut up, or patties of some sort. Just something a little neater, we think it would be good to have something you take one or a piece of, if that makes sense? Any ideas for it are very welcome, or thoughts on whether fritters/battered vegetables would be good too! Edited to add, probably not another carbohydratey thing. Although batter/breading/pastry type stuff clearly doesn't count in that ;).
Thank you for reading this mammoth post whether you reply or not! This seems like a vegan wedding focus group, I like it a lot ;).
From the beginning we've been planning a hot buffet, so that guests can see their food and make their choices. We're lucky in that our venue is completely happy to create a vegan menu for us (in fact all the venues we looked at were, which is pretty awesome considering we don't live somewhere with a big vegan community!) so we get to have a lot of input, particularly as the chef is a bit lost. We have a meeting with them next week, originally we were just going to give some ideas but it's turned into a complete menu, and one that we're feeling really good about!
It's ended up in a vaguely mexican style, as we're trying to have familiar dishes which aren't intimidating yet still interesting and full of flavour to show off vegan food, whilst also having plain stuff on offer too as my side of the family are Irish meat and potato eaters. A vegan menu is never going to be perfect for people who don't like vegetables, but hopefully it's hitting the right balance of being non-scary yet also tasty for us and our foodie friends. It's quite hard to get into one buffet but we're hoping we're almost there! However it's a bit disconcerting to have only been decided on this menu for a few days yet potentially we might tell the hotel next week that yes, we definitely want this in seven months time, so we thought getting some more feedback would be good! We could also do with another dish which we're not yet decided on, so ideas would be really helpful there as well!
So this is our potential menu:
Tortilla chips, guacamole, salsa and cherry tomatoes at tables to pick at whilst other things go on.
-
5 bean chilli
Roast Vegetables
Something else*
Jacket Potatoes
Poblano Rice
Guacamole
Salsa
Tortilla Chips
Salad
-
Fruit platter
Wedding cake (chocolate with frosting)
There will also be sweets around, plus we've got a candy floss machine planned for the evening (as a vegan alternative to a chocolate fountain!) and then we're planning to have bowls of chips (british chips that is, chunky fries rather than crisps) come out later at about 9/10pm too. We could have an evening buffet but frankly after a few hours dancing and drinking we think a bowl of chips would be ideal! But anyway, that's the 'dinner'. What do you think? Does it seem as though it works to you?
* - As for the something else, we're thinking something without chilli in, possibly something a bit more individual so it's not all slop on a plate. Fritters or battered vegetables are in the lead at the moment but if you can think of anything else we'd love to hear it!
Deep fried is good. We were also thinking about stuffed things but whatever they are, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms it's a bit blah. Wondered about vegetable kebabs, although we have roast veg. It could be pastry, something made en mass and cut up, or patties of some sort. Just something a little neater, we think it would be good to have something you take one or a piece of, if that makes sense? Any ideas for it are very welcome, or thoughts on whether fritters/battered vegetables would be good too! Edited to add, probably not another carbohydratey thing. Although batter/breading/pastry type stuff clearly doesn't count in that ;).
Thank you for reading this mammoth post whether you reply or not! This seems like a vegan wedding focus group, I like it a lot ;).