Your wedding breakfast

The wedding breakfast, a term used to describe your first meal together as a married couple and a term that has history to it.  But, how do you satisfy everyone’s pallet whilst choosing a dish you love and juggling everyone’s dietary requirements?  It makes you hungry just thinking about it! Our exclusive caterers, Kalm Kitchen, are on hand to give you a helping hand!

Let’s first have a look at where the term ‘wedding breakfast’ first came from.  Back in the days of old, weddings were traditionally held after mass (central act of worship of the Roman Catholic Church).  Everyone attending the wedding would fast before the act of mass to pay their respects and therefore the first meal would signify the breaking of the fast, hence ‘break-fast’. It also signified the married couple’s first meal together.  Therefore, even today, this meal signifies celebration. A meal enjoyed all together and an opportunity to offer a toast of respect to the happy couple.

With the celebration aspect in the forefront of our minds, how do you go about choosing a dish that embodies festivity and the marking of an event, but without being so fancy and elaborate that half your guests won’t eat it?  Pete from Kalm Kitchen offers us some welcomed advice!

“Kalm can create a bespoke seasonal menu with you, or you can choose one of our menus that can be delivered throughout the year. When designing your bespoke menu, we discuss the dishes that would be best suited to the time of year that your event is taking place.  However, we cannot stress enough, this is your day, so it is important that you have what you love to eat! Pick something that you are going to remember fondly.

When it comes to dishes that tend to satisfy every pallet, many people are nervous about chicken.  Whilst chicken is a safe, plain option for a main course, will it be boring, predictable and dry?  It’s one of the best challenges for a talented chef, like we have at Kalm Kitchen, to deliver an exciting, colourful and delicious chicken dish, fit for a banquet.  The chicken dishes on the Kalm menus are all well thought out, executed perfectly and will tantalise any guest’s taste buds so don’t discount the good old chicken from your short list!

Moving on to the pudding stage, if you just can’t choose from the mouth-watering selection of devilish deserts we have to offer, our patisserie bar hits every sweet tooth’s hit list!  It is a theatrical, exciting and interactive station that includes three delicious mini desserts for each of your guests.  We recommend selecting one chocolate, one citrus and one berry mini dessert.  If that doesn’t satisfy your guest’s sugar urges, the bar also offers the novelty of chocolate lollipops and brightly coloured macarons. This way everyone wins!

When it comes to the little people, we have a few options that will please the developing taste buds and smaller appetites of the children at your wedding.  We have the option of a party box, filled with a selection of delicious and filling treats, perfect for the younger ones.  For the more mature kids, we can make them feel just as special as the grownups, by serving them a smaller portion of the dishes. If neither of these tick the box, then we have a children’s menu that includes dough balls, hummus and crudités, chicken goujons with chunky chips and for the cherry on the top, ice cream served with sprinkles and popping candy!  Always a crowd pleaser with the little munchkins!”

But what about the dietary requirements of your distant relative who has recently converted to veganism whilst struggling with an allergy to lactose and is currently cleansing from any form of carbohydrate? You want to ensure that every single one of your guests feels as special as you do at the wedding breakfast, but the last thing the poor chef wants, is a list of 50 different dishes he needs to serve to your 200 guests.  This is where an expert caterer really shows off their knowledge of food and ability to adapt.  Here at Micklefield, we regularly get feedback from couples that Kalm Kitchen were brilliant at adapting their menu selection to accommodate every dietary requirements. Whether that was by using gluten free pastry tops for the beef and vintage ale pie, or by providing dairy free butter for the fresh bread.  There are so many ‘free from’ alternatives on the market nowadays that it needn’t be a headache anymore to accommodate everyone whilst not denying them an element of a dish.

One of the most exciting parts of planning your wedding breakfast, are the tasting sessions, and at Micklefield Hall, in partnership with Kalm Kitchen and many of our brilliant suppliers, no expense is spared! Read our blog article on one of our tasting evenings to find out more.