These are sample menus, not a fixed list. Everything is cooked on site, from local produce where the season allows it, and everything here has been changed for somebody at some point. Simon Gomes, our head chef, would rather build you something than sell you a page.

The six menus

• Canapés — hot, cold and sweet, with guidance on how many per guest
• The wedding breakfast — three courses, seated and plated
• Sharing and feasting — the Suffolk ploughman’s, the pie menu, the vegetarian classic
• Barbecue and summer — cooked outside, properly
• Vegan and vegetarian — a full menu, not a substitution
• Evening and street food — the second half of the day

How the menu gets built

You pick a shape first — canapés and a seated three-course, or canapés and a sharing table, or a barbecue — and then we go through the dishes. Most couples change two or three things. Some change everything, which is also fine.

Dietary requirements are handled properly rather than by removing components: a vegan guest gets the vegan menu, not the main course with the meat taken off.

Cooked wherever you are getting married

Barn, hall, country house or a field with nothing in it. Everything on these menus can be cooked on site, because we bring the kitchen — ovens, refrigeration, our own power and our own water. Some menus are better than others in a marquee, and each page says which.

Allergens

All fourteen declared allergens are listed against each dish on request, and we ask for every dietary requirement in writing before the tasting. Our kitchen handles nuts, gluten, dairy, egg, fish, shellfish, soya, celery, mustard, sesame, lupin, molluscs and sulphites, so we cannot guarantee any dish is free from traces. (gf) gluten free · (gfo) gluten free on request · (v) vegetarian · (ve) vegan · (vo) vegetarian on request Reeves Events holds a 5-star food hygiene rating.

From the Journal

We write about the food and how it is cooked, weekly, in Menus & Food — the Suffolk produce behind the menus, what suits a marquee and what does not, and how to build a menu around what you actually like.

Not every wedding wants a seated three courses. If you are thinking about a buffet, a sharing table or something people eat standing up, start with wedding buffet catering — it sets out how each format actually runs on the day.

How to choose between them

The six menus are not six price points. They are six different shapes of day, and the right one is decided by the room and the mood rather than the food.

Formal, controlled, everyone eating at once: a plated wedding breakfast.

Warm, loud, tables talking to each other: sharing and feasting.

Informal, outdoors, cooked on the grill: barbecue and summer menus.

Nobody sits down all day: bowl food, or festival style.

You want a buffet but a good one: wedding buffet catering sets out how it should actually be run.

Every one of them has canapés before it and evening food after it, and both are worth planning as carefully as the meal itself.

Nothing here is fixed

These are starting points, not packages. Dishes move between menus, courses come out, and a family recipe can go in if it is something we can cook well at that number. What we will not do is agree to something we know will not survive the journey from kitchen to table at scale, and we will say so rather than let it fail on the day.

Menus change with the season, because they are built from what is good that month rather than from a list printed in January. A September menu and a February menu should not look the same.

Tastings, allergens and the practical bit

Every menu we do has proper vegetarian and vegan options built in rather than added — see vegan and vegetarian menus. Our kitchen handles all fourteen declared allergens and is not a nut-free or gluten-free environment, which we state plainly because on a real allergy the honest answer is the useful one.

For how the process works from first enquiry to the day itself, see what is included and how booking works, or the questions couples actually ask us.

How to choose between them

The six menus are not six price points. They are six different shapes of day, and the right one is decided by the room and the mood rather than by the food.

Formal, controlled, everyone eating at once: a plated wedding breakfast.

Warm, loud, tables talking to each other: sharing and feasting.

Informal, outdoors, cooked on the grill: barbecue and summer menus.

Nobody sits down all day: bowl food, or festival style.

You want a buffet, but a good one: wedding buffet catering sets out how it should actually be run.

Every one of them has canapés before it and evening food after it, and both are worth planning as carefully as the meal itself.

Nothing here is fixed

These are starting points, not packages. Dishes move between menus, courses come out, and a family recipe can go in if it is something we can cook well at that number. What we will not do is agree to something we know will not survive the journey from kitchen to table at scale — we will say so rather than let it fail on the day.

Menus change with the season, because they are built from what is good that month rather than from a list printed in January. A September menu and a February menu should not look the same, and if a caterer’s does, that tells you something.

Tastings, allergens and the practical part

Every menu has proper vegetarian and vegan options built in rather than added afterwards — see vegan and vegetarian menus. Our kitchen handles all fourteen declared allergens and is not a nut-free or gluten-free environment, which we state plainly because on a real allergy the honest answer is the useful one.

For how the process works from first enquiry through to the day itself, see what is included and how booking works, or the questions couples actually ask us.