Food Glorious Food! Traditional Indian v Traditional Western v Kids Menu

Your Wedding Breakfast, may just be the most important part of the big day. People are patiently waiting through the morning or afternoon, sitting through your ceremony, mingling at the wedding reception, tickling their taste buds with canapes, preparing for the first bite of their starter later on.

Food is a big deal! It also becomes a topic of conversation, especially if you’re at an Indian wedding. Was the food too spicy? Was it not spicy enough? Did they not have enough variety of dishes? (Yes, Indian Wedding Breakfasts consist of numerous traditional Indian dishes placed in the centre of the table and guests can help themselves to what they like and how much they like!) So, it’s safe to say that the food requires careful thought and attention. While the food should be representative of you, as a couple, and be what you want, it is also necessary to be considerate of your guests and, of course, their dietary requirements.

Our Wedding Breakfast is one of the first things we discussed, and came to the conclusion that we would like the traditional Indian catering for the pre-dominantly Indian side. But we were aware that some of the Irish side, especially the elderly, would never have tried Indian food in their life, and our wedding may not be the time to make them eat something they might not want to try! We decided to meet in the middle and make exceptions to the Indian food, providing a traditional turkey or ham roast for any of Ronan’s side that wouldn’t be accustomed to a curry.

Coordinating this with our caterer

The variations in our Wedding Breakfast meant that some careful logistical planning and coordination was required.

1. We had to ensure that every Irish guest with a turkey or ham roast was sat at the same table
   

2. We had to make sure our caterer knew exactly which tables these were, to prevent a mix up so that no one was served the wrong food!

The latter wasn’t too bad - as long as our caterer had a copy of the table plans and layout of the reception room along with the name of each table, all the waiters had to do was keep a lookout for the right table name and follow the plan!

Tips for Self Planning and Coordinating

It may seem like a minor issue, but if you are planning and coordinating everything without a planner or someone in charge, it is vital that you keep your caterer informed of every piece of minor detail, including any last-minute changes. And believe me, it’s not easy to keep all those minor details in your head when you have a thousand and one other things on your mind!

I thoroughly recommend keeping a catering diary, so that you remember to write down every detail that changes or that you discuss and on which date, and relay this information to your caterer.

The Kids Menu

Some couples prefer kid-free weddings, Ronan and I are the opposite. We absolutely adore children - the more the merrier! That’s exactly what happened, we had a good number of children, including under 3s, and it was absolutely amazing. We wanted the kids to have the best time, just as much as the adults, and this started with making sure there was a kids’ menu consisting of simple chicken nuggets and chips to make them happy eating what kids like eating.

Of course, this also meant coordinating with caterers to make sure they had the exact number of kids’ menu orders, and knowing where they were all sat. But the extra coordination was so worth it when we saw just how happy the kids were!

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