Five Unforgivable Wedding Food Faux Pas

I am privileged enough to be the food expert at The Wedding Community offering wedding specific advice to hundreds of couples in the throws of organising their big day. Here is a taster of a recent article...

I have worked on over one thousand weddings and the following choices have never, ever worked well for the guests, the couple nor the caterer.

1. Replacing Pudding with Cake
I am evangelical about this, so much so that I have dedicated a whole article about it, here.

2. Marrying Early but Eating Late
Beware the “black hole” between the end of your ceremony and the first bite of food. If you are marrying any earlier than 3pm, your guests will not have had lunch (trust me, they wont) and will need feeding twice. Some form of food should be made available within half an hour of your nuptials and guests should be taking their seats for the main meal within two hours of the confetti falling.

3. Changing Seats after the Starter
If you’re intending to play musical chairs, don’t make the first move until after the main course. As a caterer and a passionate foodie, I can think of nothing worse than a beautiful dish drying out and crusting over in a hot cupboard as the post-starter speech inevitably drags.

4. A Selfishly Whacky Menu
There is a difference between serving delicious food to delight everyone and food so unique that the majority of your guests won’t touch it. Yes you might have eaten stuffed sardines on your first date, yes I appreciate that Nigella is heralding a fois gras renaissance but what goes uneaten goes unappreciated. Oysters, veal, fois gras, offal... proceed with caution and ask you caterer for advice. They’ll know what will leave guests full versus what will leave them famished.

5. Icecream in a Hot Marquee
There is a memorable episode of BBC’s The Restaurant where one hapless duo learn the hard way that marquees don’t come with freezers. Instead of ice cream and poached pears, they end up serving lukewarm “vanilla soup” to one hundred horrified VIPs at the Hurlingham Club. Caterers can do incredible things but keeping sorbet, icecream and frozen desserts at the necessary minus 23 degrees Celsius in outdoors in the sun using only a cool box is beyond even our magic.

How to Throw a Corporate Ceilidh

Last week marked Burns Night and, as regular readers of our old newsletters will know, a time that we highly recommend you consider as an alternative for festive entertaining. Deck your chosen venue in tartan, with heather floral displays on every table and wow your guests with a Chieftain Haggis ceremony, lots of whisky tots and (of course) a piper. This menu was created for challenging clients who needed us to ensure that every ingredient of an otherwise traditional menu reflected their proud Scottish heritage and include plenty their own brand of premium whiskey.

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,

Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!

Aboon them a' ye tak your place,

Painch, tripe, or thairm:

Weel are ye wordy of a grace

As lang's my arm.

Canapés

Oatcakes topped with Lanark blue cheese and fig

Venison sausages with port amd redcurrant sauce

Filo tartlets with Finnan haddock mousse

Starter

Smoked Scottish salmon, baby salad leaves

with homemade brown bread, Ballantine’s butter and lemon wedge

Haggis

 wi’ bashit neeps an’ champit tatties

Main

 Roast sirloin of Scottish beef, roast potatoes, braised red cabbage,

fine green beans and a rich whisky jus

Dessert

 Pear and thyme tart
served with whisky cream

Afters

 Fresh teas and tisanes

with tablet and whisky truffles

Simon Says "Flaunt it at Fifty"

During the Naughties, it was the footballers wives who helped bring a new meaning to the term "extravagant party". In the TwentyTeens, my instinct (and my bookings diary) is telling me that it will be successful men in their forties and fifties who will dominate and redefine the entertaining scene as we know it. In the next twelve months the likes of Bono, Gary Lineker, Jeremy Clarkson, Jonathan Ross, Hugh Grant and Simon Le Bon will all be looking to hit five-oh in style and will no doubt set a high bar (literally) for anyone turning 50 between now and 2015 (take note Piers Morgan, Matthew Freud, Noel Gallagher, David Cameron etc).

Leading the charge is Simon Cowell whose fiftieth birthday extravaganza at Wrotham Park was a watershed moment for the private party industry. Since then, I've noticed a marked rise in enquiries from discerning gentlemen who know what they want, are proud of their success and want to celebrate their half century accordingly. Simon opted to serve his guests with mini bowls of comfort food: prawn and lobster martini, chicken soup (with the infamous alphabet spaghetti), shepherd’s pie, fish and chips followed by apple pie, rice pudding and bread and butter pudding. I was recently asked to create an equally as impressive yet slightly more flambouyant menu in honour of two successful film directors holding a joint 50th birthday party in a transparent, pink carpeted marquee beside their candlelit barn conversion and moonlit swimming pool.

Canapes

Ricotta cakes with slow roasted vine tomatoes and basil wafers

Cucumber boxes of fresh feta, mint, parsley and purple shiso cress

Watermelon cubes with seared beef and pickled ginger

Brioche croutes with caramalised apple and Foie Gras

Crisp bread cups with quails egg Caesar salad

Starter

Chermoula red mullet on roasted baby fennel

with lemon yoghurt and chive oil

Duo plate of roasted tomato tatin

with a parmesan basket of yellow cherry tomato, feta and olives

Main

Slow roasted fillet of beef wrapped in Prosciutto

served with oregano polenta, fine green beans and rich burgundy sauce

Involtini of chargrilled aubergines

with spinach, goats cheese and salsa verde

Dessert

Vanilla panna cotta with English raspberries and Grappa
served on a square, pink Venetian glass dish

Pink Cocktails

Tanqueray Berry Collins

Absolute Mandarin Cosmopolitans

Pink Mocktails

Sparkling Raspberry and Elderflower

Minted Watermelon Cooler

Late Night Munchies

Bacon sandwiches with ketchup and HP sauce

Cheese toasties with anchovies and Worcester sauce

Late Night Shots
Spiced Bloody Mary's

Hot double espresso
Iced grappa with lime

Winter Feasting

Food is a winner in the winter and there is possibly never a better time in the year for a foodie to wed. The cold compels us all to seek solace from our plates, to gather with other like minds, to feast, indulge and celebrate.

If you are seeking inspiration for a winter menu, think British and focus on seasonal. Winter is the time when the tastiest of ingredients come to fruition and markets groan with fabulous and inspiring ingredients ready to be transformed into comforting feasts.

Whilst most foods are available all year round, they can taste awful when eaten out of context with the season. Never trust a caterer who wants to serve you strawberries in December!

My advice when planning a winter or late autumn menu is to go for a hot starter with homemade bread, a deep and rich main and a nostalgic favourite for desert. Mouthwatering and delicious.

IDEAS: Forest mushroom soup, dark venison, local game, Cumberland sausages, braised red cabbage, sticky toffee pudding, molten chocolate fondant, fruit crumbles, jugs of hot chocolate...

2010 Food Manifesto

Only a few days to go until new year, a new decade, a new start? Let me take this opportunity to reflect and write down my thoughts on the new food rules that will govern us in the twenty teens. 

Bring back the beef: The naughties were the decade of duck and guinea fowl, its time to get back to great British basics - the best of what we have and beyond.

Let your supper sing: It's time to ditch the shots, the skewers, those omnipresent spoons... classic, elegant, white china is the new way. It's time to focus on the content not the vessel.

Mind your manners: Every menu sends a message and the world is moving forward (or back) into fine dining. Serving guests bangers and mash is no longer a witty statement, in the twenty teens it's practically an insult.

Know who to trust: Entertaining less often means getting it right so important. When the stakes are high, don't risk your reputation on anything less than the best - the best people, the best food, the best venue. Find a trusted advisor and use their contacts wisely.