Guest Post
Vegan option. The two words that strike fear into any vegan at a catered event.
All too often, a menu will describe in detail the choices for the meat-eaters with ‘vegan option available’ hidden at the bottom in small print. What this option is usually remains a mystery until the day, meaning vegans don’t even get told what their ‘option’ is, let alone given an actual choice.
A lot of the time, the vegan option on a menu isn’t even a distant cousin of the meaty main. Take Christmas, for example. A traditional Christmas menu will have a turkey main with all the trimmings of roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, veg and gravy.
What do vegans get offered for their Christmas meal? Most of the time it’s a risotto, pasta or something else equally un-Christmassy. But guess what? Vegans like roast potatoes too. And also guess what? Potatoes are vegan. Crazy, huh?
But anyway, I’m not here to talk about Christmas, I’m here to talk about catering for vegans at a wedding. No one likes to feel different and no one wants to be the freak eating a salad when everyone else is tucking into a feast.
So, how can you include your vegan guests at your wedding?
Let’s start with the people who will actually be doing the cooking.
Your wedding caterers
Whether you’re getting married at a wedding venue in Essex or on a beach in Barbados, you will be feeding your guests but probably not doing all the cooking and catering yourself. Your wedding caterers will be used to catering for different dietary requirements but you should speak to them beforehand and work closely with them so they know you’d like to provide something more exciting than a salad for your vegan guests.
Drinks
Not all drinks are vegan. You may be wondering how drinks manufacturers have managed to put bits of animals into drinks but they manage it just fine.
Breweries, winemakers and distillers sometimes use animal products directly in their drinks, or they may use such things as fish bladders in their processing and filtration methods.
The good news is there are plenty of drinks, including beer, wine and champagne that are vegan-friendly. Your caterers will hopefully be able to guide you on this, but there’s also the Barnivore website where you can look up drinks to see whether they’re vegan or not.
Starter
I’d suggest serving everyone a vegan starter. Even your meat-eating guests (hopefully) won’t be upset about one of the courses not containing meat and it’ll save you and your caterers the extra work of choosing and making something different for a small percentage of your guests.
Don’t mention the ‘v’ word on the menu and I’m willing to bet the rest of the guests won’t even notice the lack of meat.
Main course
Whatever you do, don’t simply provide your vegan guests with a bigger portion of the starter. Even if the starter is the most amazing dish they’ve ever eaten, they’re not going to feel welcomed by being given it again for their main course.
As I said above about the Christmas menu, try and serve a vegan equivalent of whatever everyone else is eating. So, if you’re serving a roast dinner, serve your vegan guests a roast dinner, not pasta in tomato sauce.
There’s a vegan equivalent for everything these days, so there’s no need for your vegan guests to feel different to everyone else.
Dessert
Hopefully you’re aware of what vegans do and don’t eat. Basically, if it’s come from an animal, they don’t eat it. That includes ingredients you might not think of but are in a lot of desserts such as dairy, honey and gelatine. Even some food colouring is made from crushed beetles, so be aware of everything that comes out of the kitchen.
As I said above though, there’s a vegan equivalent for everything these days so even traditionally dairy-heavy desserts such as ice cream, panna cotta and trifle can all be made with vegan ingredients.
The wedding cake
I’m not for a moment suggesting you ask your caterers to make you a vegan wedding cake if you’re not vegan. But provide your vegan guests with their own vegan cake as an alternative and they’ll love you forever.
It doesn’t have to be a three-tier masterpiece complete with topper – a vegan fruit cake, chocolate cake or even a cupcake will show your vegan guests they haven’t been forgotten about.
I hope this article has been useful in giving you some ideas on how to include your vegan guests at your wedding to make it memorable. One thing I should probably point out is that not all vegans like ‘meaty’ alternatives, so check with your guests before you ask your caterers for a vegan steak!