Wedding food trends: what couples are asking us for right now

Autumn is my favourite time of year in this job. The season is winding down, the logs are on, and our diary fills up with couples planning next year and the year after — which means weeks of tastings, menu scribbling and very happy decision-making over brownies and cheesecake pots. It is also the moment I get a proper feel for what is trending in weddings right now, because the same ideas keep coming up across very different couples. So here is what we are being asked for, and what we honestly think of it all.

Sharing feasts are the new wedding breakfast

The single biggest shift we have seen. Formal plated dinners are still lovely and still requested — but more and more couples want long tables covered in boards and bowls that everyone passes around. Conversation crosses the food. Nobody has to choose between two mains they were only half keen on anyway. It feels generous, and it genuinely suits a celebration better than anything else we serve. Our sharing platters have gone from an evening extra to the centrepiece of whole wedding breakfasts.

Local and seasonal — and not just a buzzword

Couples are asking where their food comes from in a way they simply weren't a few years ago. Norfolk is spoiled for brilliant producers, and our menus are written around what is genuinely in season at the time of year you are getting married — which, as a bonus, is also when everything tastes its best. It is one of my favourite parts of menu planning: telling a couple that the asparagus on their May menu came from a few fields down the road.

Late-night food has had a glow-up

Nobody wants to watch their guests queue for a lukewarm chip any more. Evening food is now the second most-planned meal of the day, and it has gone properly premium: hog roast rolls with proper stuffing and homemade apple sauce, mac and cheese, loaded fries, mini fish and chips in cones. If the party runs to midnight, feeding people properly at nine o'clock is the single best thing you can do for the dance floor.

Menus that tell your story

This is the trend I love most. Couples want the menu to mean something — the dish from their first date, the food from a family holiday, the pudding Nan used to make. Tracy's chocolate brownies have made it onto more menus than I can count because they taste like home. When we sit down at a tasting, the best menus always come from the couples who arrive with a story rather than a spreadsheet.

So is it all worth following?

Honestly — take the bits that feel like you and leave the rest. A trend is only useful if it makes your day feel more like your day. The sharing feast, the seasonal menu, the midnight mac and cheese: they all work because they are generous, not because they are fashionable. If you are planning for 2027, most couples now book their caterer twelve to eighteen months ahead, so it is never too early to start the conversation. You can see our approach on the wedding catering page, or come and talk it through with us at a tasting.

— Sophie x