Infusing past generations in your wedding menu 

Weddings are deeply personal events that bring together friends and family to celebrate love. More couples are choosing to make their weddings even more meaningful by added touches from their story. But how? Through honouring past generations in your wedding menu.

This growing trend allows brides and grooms to pay tribute to beloved family members and provide guests a taste of their family’s traditions. Serving treasured family dishes at the reception creates a warm, nostalgic atmosphere and enables couples to literally share the flavours that shaped their lives with those they hold most dear.

Honouring Past Generations in your Wedding Menu – Where To Start?

Food has a magical way of transporting us back in time. The nostalgic memories and emotions that surface when we bite into grandma’s famous apple pie or smell the Sunday gravy simmering for hours are powerful beyond words. For many couples, incorporating family recipes into their wedding menu is a beautiful way to honour past generations and bring fond food memories into their new lives ahead.

Beyond the nostalgia factor, heritage recipes infuse a wedding with a cosy sense of home. Rather than opting for the standard chicken, fish, or beef, a meaningful family dish makes the menu personal. Suddenly, the food isn’t just nourishment – it’s an edible family heirloom. Each bite connects guests to the roots of the couple. Dishes seasoned with tradition add a heartfelt layer to the wedding feast.

Honouring Past Generations – Outside of your Wedding Menu

Including touches to honour family is a special way to pay tribute to those who can’t attend your wedding. This is especially meaningful if you want to remember loved ones who have passed away.

Here are a few creative ideas to honour family members outside of your wedding menu:

• Create a memorial table with photos of departed loved ones, candles, and a small floral arrangement. This provides a dedicated space for quiet reflection.
• Make a donation to a cause that was important to the family member you want to honour. You can note the donation in the program.
• Light a unity candle and leave a space for the flame from a candle representing the absent loved one. This symbolises their spiritual presence.
• Add special seats with a photo, flower, or other memento so it’s like the family member is there in spirit.
• Ask the officiant to include a moment of silence or remembrance during the ceremony.
• Attach a locket with a picture to your bouquet. Keep this family member close to your heart.
• Serve their favourite foods or drinks at the reception. This is a tasty tribute.
• Play a special song they loved during the reception.

Honouring relatives who cannot attend with small personalised gestures makes them feel part of your special day. This is a heartwarming way to blend past and present family connections.

Logistics

As bespoke caterers, we absolutely love to create menus like this, with touches or elements that reflect our couples story. We can work with you on getting the recipe down to the T. We’ve worked with a couple of people now who have done something like this to remember their loved ones who couldn’t be there for their special day and we just LOVED it, we wanted to share this with the world. We would be honoured to work with you on adding this special touch to your wedding menu.

Signature Drinks | Honouring Past Generations In Your Wedding Menu

Serving signature cocktails infused with family recipes and traditions is a wonderful way to add personal meaning to your wedding reception. Ask relatives if they have any beloved drink recipes you could adapt, like a grandmother’s punch recipe or father’s famous mulled wine.

Get creative and give classic cocktails your own family twist. For example, add your parents’ favourite liqueurs to a negroni or margarita recipe. Infuse liquors with fruits and herbs from your family’s garden to create unique infusions. Garnish drinks with edible flowers from the garden for a nostalgic touch.

For a heartwarming infusion, add a splash of liquor gifted from guests’ home bars to the signature cocktail. Serving their contributions adds personal meaning.

Display old handwritten recipe cards at the bar as decor and mementos. Have a special cocktail mixing set engraved with your new family name or wedding date for a memorable heirloom.

Signature cocktails featuring your family’s cherished ingredients will complement the special family recipes incorporated throughout your reception menu. Infusing drinks with tradition and memories makes for a heartfelt toast.

What it means to me

Honouring your family through food and recipes is a heartfelt way to bring sentiment into your wedding day. Being a chef for over 25 years, working in some of the most sought after restaurants around the country, I still remember my love for cooking and how it came about in my grandma’s kitchen cooking with her and my mum. I still reflect on recipes passed down through generations in my family and have developed these to create some of my favourite dishes today.

Looking for someone to deliver your family recipes for your wedding and a team of chefs to create a menu around something special to you – drop us a message and we’d love to hear about what you’re looking for. In the meantime, check out our instagram account to see what we’ve been up to.

Honouring past generations in your wedding menu has to be one of the most bespoke services we can offer. We love that we can bring a bit of history back into someones wedding day and bring back a memory on such a special day. What’s not to love?