Catering for vegetarians

To be honest I would message them all. How many day guest are you having? I’m having 80 and I pretty much know already who’s vegetarian as they’re all close friends and family but if you’re not sure send out a message. You’d never want to have to serve a veggie meat on your wedding day! It would just be an added stress. I don’t think there is a general % as it completely depends on the person or social group! I have a very vegetarian family and a lot of friends who are vegan!

I would definitely ask people. I was a veggie bride and we had guests with vegetarian and vegan diets as well as people with dairy and gluten allergies so you'd need to know about them too! You don't want to have a guest ending up at hospital due to their allergy not being catered for or going hungry because they were too polite to say! We also had people who did eat certain meats for other reasons so you just can't guess!

I’m vegetarian so there will be an option at our wedding just for me as the only one haha however from past experience of going to weddings I always ended getting my own food from the restaurants in the hotels as the couples didn’t put anything out for vegetarians. I don’t even think we were asked about dietary requirements for the evening. So I think it would be nice if you did send out a general message just to cover it

I didn’t ask but when ppl have RSVP’d I’ve sent an acknowledgment of their RSVP and asked dietary requirements- I thought this would add a personal touch to also acknowledge and thank them for their RSVP (done this all through email) x

I've not asked evening guests their requirements. We're servicing a typical buffet with meat and veggie options. It's colimemtary. People can have as little or as much as they want x

I did a third non veg, a third veg and a third halal. Everyone seemed happy.

I was a veggie bride, had 2 further veggies, 2 vegans and 1 who has coeliac disease. You're best finding out at least for the sake of allergies!

I would ask day guests but I don’t see the point in asking night, some might not even turn up and some will eat before they go etc x

Meat eaters will eat veggie stuff if you're doing a traditional buffet so I'd go 50/50. If you're doing bbq or bacon butties type of thing you will need to know about the veggies and vegans. But with allergies unless you're doing a really good mix with non wheat and diary free etc options, you might want to order something seperate for those people. Best to ask in advance than keep your fingers crossed on the day. Good luck x

For day guests you would need to ask them if they have dietary requirements as your venue will need to know who the vegetarians are plus they may have other requirements. For evening guests I don’t think it matters if it is just for a buffet and not part of the sit down meal. Most evening guests will likely eat before anyway. We looked at the number of veggie day guests we had as they would still be there for the evening and then worked out a percentage of about 70% meat and 30% veggie. If you have found out your day guests’ requirements then I would go off that.

What about allergies??!

We ended up replying when they r.s.v.p to say any dietary requirements

Chip butties all round. Problem solved.

Hi. When I worked weddings or coperate events, it was usually 10% of the total number of guests you have to cater for special dietary requirements xx

The way I’m doing it is I’m gonna have a buffet set up for 70-80% of the total number of guests, as far as vegetarian food goes, you’d probably be best asking the caterer/venue to see what vegetarian things they’d offer. The only thing I can think of is vegetable substitutions like instead of chicken samosas vegetable ones, vegetable spring rolls, salad sandwiches, of vegetarian sausage rolls 🙂 x

We included it on the invite as we had people with known allergies.

I wouldn’t bother asking, they normally tell you themselves anyway x

We only based it on our day numbers, we had a few more vegetarians in the evening but as long as you cater for 70% with a small amount to cover dietary requirements you should be fine

we are doing a Buffett including halal veggie and normal no pork as I know half my guests wont eat if there's pork around

We asked on the RSVPs about dietary requirements but only had vegetarian food in the evening so that everyone could enjoy :-)

We did ask in ours but I still checked when they RSVP’d xx

A person with dietary requirements should think to let you know, however you could send them all a message to just remind everyone.