by Toms Stālmans
Wedding Dietary Restrictions: The Playbook Your Caterer Wishes Every Couple Had
Vegan aunt, coeliac groomsman, nut-allergy flower girl. Collect it once, tag it on the chart, brief the caterer properly — and nobody has to ask "is there something I can eat?"
logistics · catering · planning
Here's a number that surprises most couples: at a 150-person wedding, expect 15 to 25 guests with a dietary restriction. That's not an edge case — that's two full tables. Handle it well and nobody notices, which is precisely the point. Handle it badly and your vegan cousin eats bread rolls for three hours and mentions it at every family gathering until the end of time.
Know what you're dealing with
The usual suspects: vegetarian (the most common by far), vegan (no dairy, eggs, honey — check the sauces), gluten-free (a preference for some, coeliac disease for others — ask which), nut allergies (potentially life-threatening; cross-contamination matters, not just ingredients), dairy-free, halal and kosher (talk to the guest directly if unsure), shellfish allergies (common and often severe), and the quieter ones — low-sodium, diabetic — that matter for older guests.
The single most important distinction: preference versus medical. "Prefers not to eat gluten" and "will have an anaphylactic reaction if a crouton grazes the plate" require very different things from a kitchen. Always find out which one you have.
“Prefers not to eat gluten” and “anaphylactic if a crouton grazes the plate” ask completely different things of a kitchen.
Collect it once, via the RSVP
Add one free-text field to your RSVP: "Any dietary requirements?" Not a dropdown — real restrictions are too varied for tidy categories, and the text box lets people mention things without sending an awkward separate message. Some guests will write nothing despite being vegan since 2019; some will write a novella. Both are fine.
Two weeks out, cross-reference: anyone you know has a restriction but didn't mention it gets a quick text. "Confirming with the caterer — still gluten-free, right?" Thirty seconds, problem solved.
Put it on the chart, not in a side spreadsheet
Tag each guest's restriction directly on the seating chart so the information travels with the name — onto the PDF, into the venue coordinator's hands, all the way to seat 4 at table 7 where the nut allergy is sitting. In tableplanner, dietary and accessibility tags are visible on the seat itself and survive every reshuffle; when Aunt Carol moves tables, her vegan tag moves with her.
A trick caterers love: cluster restrictions lightly. No need for an all-vegan table, but three vegans seated together means one plated run instead of three trips across the room. Faster service, hotter food. The same logic applies to kids' meals.
Brief the caterer like a professional
Your caterer needs three things, in writing, at least two weeks out:
- A count by restriction type — not "a few vegetarians" but "5 vegetarian, 2 vegan, 3 gluten-free (1 coeliac), 1 nut allergy (severe), 1 halal."
- Severity flags for every allergy, clearly marked. The kitchen plans cross-contamination protocols around these.
- The seating chart with dietary tags visible. This is the game-changer: the right plate finds the right person without a single "who's the fish?" lap of the room.
Don't forget the bar
Restrictions don't stop at food. Cream cocktails carry dairy, sours carry egg white, amaretto carries nuts. If you're doing a signature cocktail, make sure at least one option is vegan and nut-free. And a fact that surprises people: many wines are filtered with animal products (casein, gelatin, isinglass). If you have strict vegans, ask the venue about vegan-friendly wines — they exist and cost no more.
The golden rule
Nobody should have to ask "is there something I can eat?" at your wedding. Collect early, tag it on the chart, brief the caterer in writing — that's not extra work, that's hospitality, and it slots straight into the one-evening seating method from our main guide.
