When couples first talk to us about having a BBQ for their wedding, there’s sometimes a slight hesitation: Will it feel special enough for a wedding?
Our answer is always yes.
A BBQ is a style of cooking, not a style of wedding
It can be wonderfully relaxed and informal, with guests helping themselves to food straight from the grill. But it can just as easily form the centrepiece of an elegant three-course wedding breakfast, with beautiful starters, quality ingredients cooked over fire, generous sharing dishes and a proper dessert to finish.
For us, that’s what makes BBQ catering so exciting. It gives couples the freedom to create the kind of wedding meal they actually want.
Forget what you think a wedding BBQ looks like
A great wedding BBQ is about far more than burgers and sausages.
Cooking over fire gives us an incredible way to work with quality, seasonal ingredients. Depending on the style of the wedding, that might mean carefully selected cuts of meat, fresh fish, beautifully marinated dishes and vegetables cooked over fire, alongside equally considered vegetarian and vegan options.
We build the rest of the menu around the food coming from the grill, with seasonal salads, generous sides, breads, sauces and accompaniments that bring everything together as a proper wedding feast.
That’s not to say burgers and sausages don’t have their place – they absolutely do, and we can certainly include them when they’re right for the occasion. For weddings, though, they tend not to feature heavily in our menus.
It’s not about making BBQ unnecessarily fancy. It’s about starting with good ingredients, cooking them properly and creating a menu that fits the wedding.
A BBQ can still be a three-course wedding breakfast
Choosing BBQ catering doesn’t mean giving up the structure or sense of occasion of a traditional wedding breakfast.
You can absolutely have three courses.
You might begin with canapés during the drinks reception, followed by a seasonal starter or sharing boards at the tables. The main event can then centre around food cooked over fire, accompanied by generous salads and sides, before everyone sits back down for dessert.
Alternatively, the whole meal can be more relaxed, with guests visiting the BBQ and choosing what they’d like while our team looks after the tables, drinks and clearing.
There isn’t one correct way to do it.
Some couples want the theatre of seeing chefs cooking in front of their guests. Others love sharing dishes arriving at the tables. Some want a very relaxed garden-party atmosphere, while others want all the flavour and theatre of outdoor cooking with the service and presentation of a more traditional wedding breakfast.
The cooking method doesn’t dictate the formality of the day.
Make the food generous
One of the things we love most about BBQ wedding catering is the generosity of it.
A wedding is a celebration, and nobody should be wondering whether there’s enough food.
We build our menus so that the dishes from the grill work together with the salads, vegetables, potatoes, breads, sauces and accompaniments to create a proper feast rather than simply putting something from the BBQ on a plate with a side salad.
The same applies to vegetarian and vegan food. It shouldn’t feel like the alternative that was added at the end because somebody remembered there were three vegetarians coming.
Wherever possible, we like the vegetarian and vegan dishes to sit naturally alongside the rest of the menu, sharing the same style, flavours and accompaniments so that everybody feels they’re part of the same wedding feast.
Let the fire become part of the experience
There’s something about live-fire cooking that naturally draws people in.
Guests can see the food being prepared, smell it cooking and watch the chefs at work. It creates atmosphere before anyone has even taken their first bite.
For a wedding, that can be brilliant.
Instead of the kitchen being completely hidden away, part of the cooking becomes visible and adds to the occasion. It gets people talking, creates anticipation and brings a little theatre to the meal without the day feeling overly formal.
And when you’re celebrating somewhere beautiful in Sussex, being able to make the most of the grounds rather than moving everybody indoors for several hours can completely change the feel of the day.
And yes, we think about the weather
We cater outdoors in Britain, so weather planning is part of what we do – and it isn’t always rain we’re planning for.
We’ve catered weddings through incredibly wet conditions, where careful planning around cover, cooking areas and service routes has been essential. But we’ve also faced the complete opposite.
At a recent wedding on a nature reserve, weeks of exceptionally dry weather meant that cooking over an open fire on site was no longer considered safe. Rather than allowing that to change the couple’s wedding breakfast, we adapted our cooking plan and still delivered the BBQ feast they had chosen – to the point that their guests would never have known it hadn’t been cooked over fire at the venue.
That’s why we think about contingency plans from the beginning. Where will the cooking area sit? What cover is available? How will food travel between cooking and dining areas? What happens if conditions change, or if using live fire simply isn’t appropriate on the day?
Most of that planning happens quietly behind the scenes.
Our job is to make those decisions and find solutions so that our couples don’t have to spend the week before their wedding obsessively refreshing the weather forecast.
Because a great outdoor wedding meal shouldn’t depend on perfect weather.
The team matters as much as the menu
When comparing wedding BBQ caterers, it’s very easy to compare menus and price per person.
But catering a wedding is about much more than cooking the food.
Who is setting everything up? Who is looking after the tables? Who is clearing? Who is keeping an eye on timings if the speeches run over? Who is making sure dietary requirements reach the correct guests? Who is quietly adapting when something on the day doesn’t happen quite as planned?
The right number of experienced chefs and front-of-house staff makes an enormous difference to how relaxed the meal feels.
You should be enjoying your wedding. You shouldn’t be thinking about what’s happening behind the scenes.
Make it your wedding, not our package
We have BBQ collections because they’re a useful starting point, but some of our favourite menus have developed from conversations with couples.
You may want a relaxed main course followed by a more traditional dessert. Perhaps you’d prefer sharing starters before the BBQ, or there are particular flavours or family influences you’d love to bring into the menu.
That’s where things become personal.
A good wedding menu should make sense as a whole, but it should also feel like your wedding.
Relaxed doesn’t mean basic
Perhaps that’s the biggest misconception about wedding BBQ catering.
Relaxed service doesn’t have to mean basic food, and exceptional food doesn’t have to come with a very formal dining experience.
You can have beautiful ingredients, thoughtful presentation, experienced service and a proper three-course wedding breakfast while still creating an atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable, conversations flow and people genuinely enjoy eating together.
That’s why we love cooking weddings this way.
A BBQ is a style of cooking, not a style of wedding.
And when it’s done properly, it can be one of the most memorable ways to feed the people you’ve brought together to celebrate with you.
Planning a Wedding BBQ in Sussex?
Sussex Chef creates bespoke wedding BBQs and outdoor dining experiences across Sussex and the surrounding areas, from relaxed garden celebrations to full three-course wedding breakfasts centred around live-fire cooking.
If you’re planning your wedding and would like to talk through what could work for your day, we’d love to hear your ideas.
Helen Hutton
Helen Hutton is co-owner of Sussex Chef alongside her husband Pip, working closely with clients to help bring together thoughtful, memorable events across Sussex.
