Deciding what food to serve at your wedding can be a stressful and complicated procedure; it needs to reflect the tone of the event, appeal to your guests, and remain in budget all at the same time. We’ve asked Sally Newall, owner and founder of Simply Ice Cream and Simply Catering, about her best tips for finding the right caterer for your wedding.
Below is just a snippet of our interview with Sally – to listen to all her tips on catering for a wedding and starting a successful business, listen to the latest podcast episode from Pep Talk With Peppitt on Spotify, iTunes or Stitcher.
Keep reading to learn about the Wedding Food Do’s and Don’ts!
Is it difficult to cater for weddings?
‘People forget that you’re not just doing a wedding on a Saturday. You’re doing the clear up on the Sunday and Monday, and you’re planning next week’s wedding. It’s something I enjoy, but it’s very hard work’.
What’s the easiest mistake that couples can make when planning their menu?
‘It depends on where they are going to hold the wedding. There might be restrictions on things that can be brought into the venue. Sometimes you have to make them aware that if you’re working in a kitchen that is three metres by two metres, you can’t have a bank of ovens. So you have to tailor the menu accordingly‘.
‘Things like timings are always an issue – it’s something that we always talk through and usually have to extend’
Is it important for couples to know what they want before meeting the caterer?
‘Most people will come to you with an idea of what they want, and on the whole you’ll try to accommodate that’
‘There are a lot of magazines these days that give couples lots of ideas, so they are pretty clued about what will work and what won’t’.
What tips can you give couples who are trying to find the perfect wedding caterer?
‘They need to meet them in person, because you need a good rapport with your caterer’
‘Wedding planners will know some good caterers, and the venues can recommend some too. Otherwise, it’s word of mouth. If you’ve been to a wedding and enjoyed the food then that’s always great, because you know what you’re going to get’
‘You have to be realistic about what you can afford, and I think that weddings cost so much money so it’s easy to go over-budget’.
You pride yourself on having a totally organic, homemade ice cream business. Why do you think it’s important to serve organic food?
‘I think that as producers we need to be thinking about what we’re putting into food. Five years ago, butter was evil. Now sugar is evil, but I think that sugar substitutes can be even worse. So for me, it was really important that we made a natural product’
When trying to plan a vegan menu for a wedding, do you have any advice?
‘You can do some really interesting things with vegan food, so that in itself isn’t a challenge’
‘A lot of people have asked me ‘Where’s the nearest McDonalds?’ – it wasn’t that there wasn’t enough food, they just wanted meat. So the biggest challenge is thinking ‘are the guests going to be full enough and happy enough?’
Any parting words of wisdom?
‘At the end of the day, it’s the bride’s day!’