Your wedding breakfast is your first meal together as a married couple, and it’s a large event that involves your guests too. To ensure your wedding breakfast is spot on and delicious, follow Devon and Somerset Marquees’ top tips to help you along your way to a relaxed and memorable celebration.
Top Tips
- Establish the amount of mouths you’ll need to feed – state on your invites that you require an RSVP before a certain date, so you know exactly how many people you will be catering for and what their dietary restrictions are. Send along the menu so they can choose their courses.
- Decide on your menu and style of meal – are you having a sit-down meal or a buffet?If you prefer everything to be just so, a well-organised sit-down meal is certainly more straightforward and you have the added fun of being able to agree on some impressive courses with your chosen chef that are bound to impress your friends and family.Alternatively, if our guest list is extremely long, it might be easier to have a buffet. This way your guests can pick and choose what they’d like to have to eat and it helps to cater for guests with dietary restrictions.
Sit-down meals
- Meal Options: Starters
Choose a light, versatile option that’ll pair nicely with a meaty/vegetarian/vegan main. - Meal Options: Mains
Keeping it simple but rich in flavour will ensure your guests are fully satisfied with their meals and still have enough room for a dessert. - Meal Options: Desserts
Unfortunately not everyone likes chocolate or can tolerate dairy for that matter, so it’s always good to ensure there’s a fruity option.
Other things to consider…
- Seating plan for your buffet/sit-down meal
Figure out the space you have in your marquee and organise what shape and size of tables work best and think about how many people will be on each table, so there’s enough space for everyone. There will always be a ‘head table’ where the married couple will sit alongside their best men/maids of honour. As for the rest of the tables, try to pair up those who you know are close and friends with each other, table by table. You may also want to have a kids table, so parents can have a moment to chat with the other adults. - Consider the distance and how long it’ll take for you and your guests to get from the ceremony to your after party/wedding breakfast venue – as you’ll need to let your chefs know when the food needs to come out, so it’s fresh, hot and ready in time.
- Do you wish to have photos of your bridal party after the ceremony? You will need to take timing into account if you’re having professional pictures taken. This can be quite time consuming because there’s no doubt you’ll want group photos and portraits too. For an idea of how long it can take, group photos take about 5 minutes per group and personal portraits can take up to 30 minutes each.To help streamline this process, ask your photographer to choose a nice background in advance to the photoshoot. Also, make a list of the groups you’d like to have pictures of on the day – this way you won’t miss anyone out.
- Speeches – generally speaking, speeches are before your meal but it’s your wedding, space them throughout your courses so you don’t end up with fidgety guests and it’ll keep everyone engaged throughout. After the ceremony, photos and travelling to the after party venue, it’s likely you and your guests will be getting hungry! Ask your friends and family to keep speeches to around 10 minutes to keep the momentum going.
- Communicate with your chefs – keep in contact with them on the day but they should already know what time they’re working with, if you’ve taken the above into account. Once they have a rough time for when everyone will be seated, you can ensure everything will run smoothly.
For help and advice with your event, turn to Devon and Somerset Marquees for your interior design and decoration. Whether you’re planning your wedding breakfast in a marquee, birthday, anniversary or other, let the experts help you – so that’s one thing off your long list! We operate throughout Exeter, Taunton, Barnstaple, Tiverton, Ilfracombe, Minehead and the surrounding areas. For a first-rate service and an after party to remember, call our event management and marquee hire team today.
