Tips On Planning A Gluten-Free Wedding

20 December 2016
 Categories: Food & Cooking, Blog

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If you have coeliac disease or have a friend who can't eat gluten, you'll want to be confident that your wedding day is gluten-free. Planning a gluten-free celebration is actually not as tricky as you might at first think. Here are some tips on how to do it.

Work closely with your caterer

To ensure that your wedding is gluten-free, you'll need to choose a caterer who is prepared to take the time to discuss your wedding catering with you in detail. You also need to be certain that your chosen caterer fully understands the concept of what constitutes a true gluten-free menu. Even the smallest quantity of gluten can make someone with coeliac suffer extremely, so it's vital that you make the right choice.

These tips can be helpful in helping you to choose the perfect caterer.

  1. Make a list of foods, ingredients and dishes and ask the prospective caterer to draw a line through those that they think contain gluten and that would therefore not be used. Provided the list comes back from the caterer absolutely correct, you can be confident that you can work with them. 
  2. Alternatively, you could provide your caterer with a list of recipes that you know should be gluten-free. However, you'll still need to be confident that the caterer will follow the recipes to the letter and not substitute any of the ingredients for something that contains gluten. 
  3. Consider choosing something simple as the main dish for your wedding breakfast. For example, a whole poached salmon with a selection of fresh salads or seasonal vegetables looks impressive and is also gluten-free. Alternatively, you could go for something like a hog roast if your wedding is to be informal and based outdoors.

Discuss alternitives for the wedding cake

Because of the gluten-free flour that must be used to make a coeliac-friendly wedding cake, it can be tricky to construct a traditional multi-tier one. For this reason, you might want to discuss alternatives with your caterer, including:

  1. Two-layer cakes made from polenta and decorated with fresh, edible flowers. 
  2. Frozen cakes constructed from tiers of fruit sorbet and decorated with seasonal berries and fruits. The disadvantage of this is that the cake must be served quickly as it will melt in warm weather.

A gluten-free wedding needn't be difficult to arrange if you find a caterer who understands the concept and is prepared to be flexible when it comes to preparing a menu that will suit everyone.