Wedding Dietary Requirements
The way to handle dietary requirements at a wedding is to design the menu around them from the start, not to produce separate plates at the end of the table. If you collect the restrictions early, most Tuscan courses can be built so that the vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free versions are the same dish rather than a substitute.
Collect them at RSVP, not at the seating plan
Ask on the RSVP, in writing, with a free-text box rather than tick-boxes: tick-boxes miss the guest who is fine with butter but not cream. Then send the list to your chef at least six weeks out. What you must not do is arrive with a revised list on the morning; at that point the shopping is done and the prep has started.
Ask one more question than feels polite: is it a preference, an intolerance, or an allergy? These are three different problems. A preference shapes the menu; an intolerance shapes the prep; an allergy shapes the kitchen: separate boards, separate pans, separate service, and a named person responsible for that plate.
Design around them, do not bolt them on
Tuscan food makes this easy, because so much of it was vegetarian before anyone called it that. Beans, bread, tomatoes, olive oil and vegetables carry entire courses on their own. A contorno of cannellini all'uccelletto is not a vegetarian option: it is just a Tuscan dish that happens to be vegetarian.
The primo is the course that needs planning: pasta is eggs and wheat. A gluten-free pasta made properly, with its own water and its own pan, is genuinely good. A gluten-free pasta made as an afterthought is the single most common bad plate at Italian weddings, and it always goes to the person who had the least choice about it.
The rule I hold myself to
No guest should be able to tell, from what arrives in front of them, that they were the complicated one. If the vegan at table four gets something visibly lesser while everyone around them eats the real menu, the catering has failed that guest regardless of how good the other 199 plates were.
This costs almost nothing to get right and is largely a matter of deciding to do it at the menu stage. Ask any chef you are considering how they handle it: the answer tells you a great deal about how the rest of the day will go.
Cooking your wedding, not just writing about it.
I cook 80–200 guest weddings in the Tuscan countryside every season. If you want the food handled by the person who wrote this, get in touch.
Talk to me about your weddingQuestions, answered.
When should we send dietary requirements to the caterer?
At least six weeks before the wedding. Collect them at RSVP with a free-text box rather than tick-boxes, and send the whole list at once. Changes on the morning are too late: the shopping is done and prep has started.
Can a Tuscan wedding menu be made gluten-free?
Yes, and well. The one course needing real planning is the primo, since pasta is wheat and eggs: a proper gluten-free pasta needs its own dough, its own cooking water and its own pan. Done that way it is genuinely good; done as an afterthought it is the worst plate at the wedding.
How do you handle severe allergies at a wedding?
Separate boards, separate pans, separate service, and one named person in the brigade responsible for that plate from start to finish. Tell me at menu stage rather than on the day, and tell me whether it is a preference, an intolerance or an allergy: they are three different problems.
Should vegetarian guests get a different menu?
Ideally not a visibly different one. Much of Tuscan cooking is vegetarian by tradition rather than by substitution, so with a bit of menu design the vegetarian version of a course can be the same dish. No guest should be able to tell they were the complicated one.
