Like no many others, you’re vegan, and want to have a vegan-friendly wedding. As desired,you’ve got all natural decorations, no-silk wedding dress, vegan leather shoes… You know your guests will like vegan wedding favors (soy candles, herbal soaps, succulents), but there one more thing you will baffle with when you start to plan your vegan wedding.

And this is FOOD!

And here is some reasons of you being stumped:

• Most of the guests are/aren’t vegan
• You’re vegan, but your fiancé is meat lover
• You want different variety of yummy food for everyone
• You don’t want to estrange any of guests, but you still want to serve vegan food on your wedding

I have a great news for you – nowadays is easier than ever to find a vegan vendors that will provide the best service ever, and some of your guests even won’t notice that it was a plant based meat. You wouldn’t be able to do it let’s say ten years ago, as not many vendors would break the recipe or test to do something new, but as more people moving to vegan lifestyle, so do wedding vendors.

I have this tips for you to plan a delicious vegan food that you guests will be surprisingly saying, “You’re lying, it’s cant be a vegan food – taste like a beef!”

1. You can begin planning your vegan wedding with looking for vegan-friendly venues in your area, as well as caterer and bakers. Good news that there are so many wedding vegan vendors in Australia, specially in big cities such as Melbourne, Sydney or Adelaide. Don’t hesitate to contact any other vendors who don’t specify themselves as “just vegan”, as they still might offer plant-based options beside the main. Some of chefs would be more than happy to do something vegan for you even if they never done it before! If you found the vendors you love, specify all details with them before going ahead, to avoid any misunderstandings in future!

2. As you will find caterer who would love to work with you and take care of vegan food on your day, you can take part on creating menu for the weeding day. Sit closely and discuss what would you like to be served on your day, make some food suggestions that you’d love to be included on the menu. This will show how important for you to have a perfect vegan menu on your day, that still delicious for meat lovers!

3. Not all of the guests might be vegans, so to be ensured those people will love your food, you can bring one or two meat-lovers to taste your food and drinks and hear their opinion. If they approve and quite happy with the food – there are more chances that most of the guests will love it! You can’t be 100% sure that every single guest will be satisfied, but by doing tasting like that and getting an approval from your non-vegan friends gives you more chances everything will go perfect!

4. Adding some basic appetizers that are recognizable by everyone and yet delicious will make other feeling about vegan food for your guests. They might be surprised that so simple and yummy food is also exclusively plant-based. Most of people will think that vegan food is all about tofu or kale sticks, so they will be so surprised if there will be different variety of finger foods, like baked balsamic bruschetta, baked vegetable croquettes or spinach stuffed mushrooms.

5. There might be one issue you’ll stuck on your way, and its a budget question. Yes, for a vegan menu you might pay more than for usual menu. If you get stumbled with this problem, then you should consider do a cocktail buffet or food station instead of served menu dinner. You can easily find a vegan pizza caterer or have a set up to make your own burger, for example.

6. There still might be some drinks and alcohol not animal-friendly, so make sure to check that drinks are vegan, so its in line with your values!

7. There for sure will be some guests that might criticize your choice of going just with vegan food, so you may have doubts if you even should tell them about your decision. From one side you want to be straight forward with everyone and let them know what to expect, but from the other side you will be worried if people who doesn’t know will enjoy the food without asking a question.

What I can tell you for sure – there no right way about it, you think about it and consider what will work best. If you’ll decide to let everyone know, you might hear such questions like, “Should we bring our own food?” or “Should we eat before going to your wedding?”

If you’ll decide to keep it secretly for everyone, then sometimes a note on menu “All vegan food” should be good enough!

8. One last tip beside the food consideration is to find the photographer who offer only digital. Traditional photography methods have including gelatin – an animal product. If you are having album included in your package, make sure it’s not with leather cover!

If you’re looking for any additional recommendation about vegan wedding from a person who attended hundreds different weddings, feel free to contact me by the link below, and I’ll share with you all I know!