Wedding Menu Allergies: From the RSVP to the Catering Brief
At any wedding of 80 guests or more there will be, at minimum, one coeliac, two lactose-intolerant guests, one nut allergy, three vegetarians, and someone who “doesn’t eat fish but shellfish is fine”. That’s not a nuisance — it’s statistics. The difference between handling it well or badly isn’t the caterer (good ones are used to it); it’s how you collect and organise the information. And that starts with your RSVP form.
Ask on the RSVP, not over WhatsApp
If you wait for each guest to message you their dietary needs, you’ll end up with the information scattered across three chats, two calls to your mothers, and a napkin. The question belongs on the RSVP form itself, with two design details that matter:
- A free-text field, not checkboxes. Checkboxes (“coeliac / vegan / lactose”) run out fast: there are cross-allergies, degrees of intolerance, and endless combinations. A free field captures “allergic to kiwi and latex, pregnant” without you having to predict it.
- One answer per person, not per form. When someone confirms for their whole family, you need each companion’s restrictions by name. “We’re four and one is coeliac” is useless to the waiter carrying plates — they need to know which one.
Add one nuance to the wording: “allergies, intolerances or dietary preferences”. That way you also capture vegetarians and vegans, who aren’t allergic but count just the same for the menu.
From form to catering brief
As you approach your RSVP deadline — usually 3 or 4 weeks out — it’s time to turn the answers into something the caterer can use. Nearly all of them will ask for:
- Total headcount, split into adults and children.
- A tally per restriction: how many gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, vegan and specific-allergy meals.
- A named list: which person has which restriction. That’s what lets the serving staff deliver the right plate to the right chair.
If your RSVPs live in a spreadsheet — or better, a dashboard you can export to CSV — this brief takes ten minutes: filter the dietary column, group, send. Building it from a WhatsApp thread takes a whole afternoon and guarantees something slips through.
With an RSVP that asks for each companion's dietary needs and a dashboard with CSV export, the catering brief practically writes itself.
Create my invitation for freeCross it with the seating plan
The final link is the wedding day itself: the waiter needs to know who gets each special plate. Two moves that solve it:
- Note the restrictions on the seating plan you hand to the coordinator: “Table 7, Martha L. — gluten-free”. The serving team will be endlessly grateful.
- Confirm with the caterer the week before how they’ll flag the special plates and who on their team holds the list. A five-minute call avoids the classic “were you the vegan?” moment, plate in hand.
The mistakes that keep repeating
- Promising more than was agreed. Before replying “no problem” to an exotic restriction, check with the caterer. Almost everything has a solution — but let the chef say so.
- Forgetting the cocktail hour and the cake. Special menus usually cover the dinner, but a coeliac guest wants canapés too. Ask about it explicitly.
- Leaving no margin for stragglers. There’s always one restriction that arrives with the wedding on top of you. Agree with the caterer on a cut-off for changes, and share that date with your guests.
- Treating it as a favour. For the person living with it, a serious allergy isn’t fussiness — it’s safety. A guest who eats without worrying is a guest who stays until the end.
The bottom line
One well-placed question on the RSVP, one tidy brief for the caterer, and the restrictions noted on the seating plan. With those three steps, dietary needs go from a source of stress to just another column in your spreadsheet.
Creating and previewing your invitation with RSVP is free — no card, no time limit. You only pay a one-time €49 when you publish.
Create my invitation for free