Menus in wedding invites

Can't help much with the layout of your invite, but it rings alarm bells to me. Makes me wonder if the venue is using a fresh, seasonal menu based on whats in, or the same menu ALL year round. Also, if the chef changes by then, it might be different. Bit odd to request the menu so far in advance. I've only been to 1 wedding where they did this, & most guests had forgotten what they ordered months beforehand. Guests also need to think ahead to what the season will be at the time of the wedding, & guess what the weather will be like before choosing their meal.

Again I can't help much as we're having afternoon tea but I wouldn't say it was unusual if your wedding is 12 weeks away (assuming your ticker is right). We are attending another wedding two weeks after ours (which would be 17 weeks from now) and we got the menus with the invites and had to RSVP with our choices by last week. And theirs is a very nice hotel with a thoughtful, multi-option menu.

I agree this is normal in my experience when you're offering a choice for the meal. Otherwise how else would you get their choices? You'd either have to send something separately or speak to everyone which seems like a lot more hassle to me. In the weddings where we'd made a choice for the meal they normally put a little description of what you ordered on the back of the place names in case you'd forgotten what you ordered.

Most weddings I have been to, there is a menu to choose from on the day! Generally not as long as a normal restaurant menu, but a few choices. That's how guests have chosen their meal. In other cases its been an alternate drop.

Maybe its a more scottish thing

i certainly do not question the freshness of food etc as its a very well known & popular hotel

its just to makes the chefs life easier i think, i've done it for weddings in the past

Im sure we'll come up with something

I've been to weddings in both Scotland and England where the menu has come with the invite. I've also been to weddings where there was no choice except take it or leave it. I've never attended one where you got to choose on the day though.

I've been to weddings in both Scotland and England where the menu has come with the invite. I've also been to weddings where there was no choice except take it or leave it. I've never attended one where you got to choose on the day though.

This is what we did for ours - we included the choice on the RSVP to make things easier - sorry for the hugeness!

In all the weddings i've been to (all in england), i've either not been told the menu beforehand (So just had to eat or leave whats been put in front of me on the day. In some cases a menu of what will be served has been on the table, in some cases you didn't know until it was put in front of you) or a menu slip (sometimes on the rsvp card) has been included as part of the info & gift list package within the invite. All we've done when given a choice is tick off our choice per course. We've usually kept a note ourselves, but have found that a copy of our choices has also been included on the place card at the table.

You say you're not a particular fan of sending menu's with the invites - why??? How else are your guests going to let you know what they want? You say you have two choices per course - you tell the guests of these two choices . . . (maybe you're thinking that you've to send their whole menu, which would personally make me feel uneasy as i can imagine guests saying they want a different dish to whats on offer, is that the case?).

We just had a set menu for ours, but as we didn't have many day guests, we checked menus with all day guests before deciding.

Where we've been given a choice - we've generally either had in the format of 2 ways:

1) X name

Y name

Z name

and for each person to write in their choices,

OR

2) starter

starter

main

main

dessert

dessert

and for each person to put their initials next to their choice

Our menus will go out with the invites too. We have a three choice menu and if we didn't let the hotel know in advance who wanted what, they'd have to over-order the ingredients for each choice and loads of food would then just go to waste if it couldn't be used in the restaurant. I was just going to add the choices onto the RSVP like others here have suggested.

Had I been offering a choice menu I would have sent out the options with the menu and asked the guests to return them with the RSVP. How else am I supposed to know what they want? To order on the day would take a long time and it is an extra hassle that the venue dont need.

The menus for my wedding that I had to choose from were sent out with the wedding information booklet, there was a standard selection and I had to pick what I wanted to offer. I dont understand how this means the food isnt fresh unless you mean seasonal in which case, some venues like mine have different options for different times of the year (winter/summer) due to things either being seasonal or just more of the food you eat in that season. Most wedding venues have standard meals that they offer, I would imagine the more you pay the more flexibility you have but the average wedding venue is very standard.

This is one of the things that drives us in hotels mad because we are given a list of choices by the organiser so we know how many people are having x and how many are having y. The trouble is that the attendees have forgotten and we end up having issues because we have to remake loads more stuff.

However, this responsibility to me lies with the B&G, if it were me, I would have a list of who has ordered what and where they are sitting and also print the options on the back of the place cards so this shouldnt happen.

For us it's a cost cutting service. Ours have said if we get people's meat options before (we're having a BBQ grill) the wedding it will make it much cheaper as they won't be left with lots of spare food (which would be worked into the price).

We'll be giving everyone a choice of 2 types of chicken, a fish option or a veggy option

Oh and every posh do I've been to that we have to Pre order the options come on the back of the place names. So I would also agree this is a job for the B&G

I've never been to a wedding where you get to choose on the day.

Sending menu cards with the invitations is standard practice. I didn't offer a choice at all - I just asked for dietary requirements - but if I had, I quite like this kind of style as it allows the guests to choose different options. Obviously you can amend for fewer choices and fewer guests.