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Are you planning on serving afternoon tea at your wedding? Here are some wedding afternoon tea menu ideas.
Afternoon tea is something I served at my own wedding as we wanted to do some of the catering ourselves.
While I wouldn’t recommend going the DIY catering route for everyone, afternoon tea is a great option for a wedding breakfast, especially if you love cake!
Here are some reasons to consider afternoon tea for your wedding:
- It’s often cheaper than a three-course sit-down wedding breakfast.
- All guests can eat at the same time.
- Less formal if you’d like a more relaxed atmosphere.
- Takes much less time than hot food being served.
- Logistically it’s an easyish option if you’re considering doing your own food.
- Easy way to offer a bigger range of vegan and veggie options.
Wedding Afternoon Tea Menu Ideas
When it comes to afternoon tea, there are a few things that would be considered essentials, such as sandwiches, scones with cream and jam and a selection of cakes and pastries. The rest is entirely up to you and your personal preferences.
At my own wedding, we chose to serve mini desserts, pastries such as pasties del nata, mini chocolate brownies and bite-sized cheesecakes.
We also chose to serve several whole cakes which our guests could take a slice of.
So here are some wedding afternoon tea ideas. You can use these to create your own wedding afternoon tea menu or use them as a guide when you discuss with your caterers or venue.
Some venues may already have a set afternoon tea menu that they use but you might be able to discuss adding things you love in place of things you’re not so keen on.
I’ll also discuss some ideas for making your wedding afternoon tea even more special.
The final thing to remember is that you’ll want to make sure your overall menu is balanced, with a selection of sweet and savoury as well as balancing between chocolate and fruit in the desserts.
Wedding Afternoon Tea Menu Ideas: The Sandwiches
First up you’ll need to think about what types of sandwiches to serve. Traditionally afternoon tea sandwiches are served in either fingers or triangles with the crusts cut off and can be made with either white or brown bread.
Traditional fillings include:
- Cucumber
- Salmon & Cucumber
- Egg & Cress
- Coronation chicken
- Beef & Horseradish
- Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese
- Prawn & Marie Rose Sauce
However, you could get creative and mix things up by serving mini filled bread rolls or even small open sandwiches.
Scones With Cream & Jam
No afternoon tea would be complete without a selection of scones. You could serve a choice of both plain and fruit scones and even offer some savoury cheese scones if you wanted to offer something savoury.
At our wedding, we served mini pots of jam and clotted cream so each guest would have their own. However, you could also serve larger ramekins for your guests to share on each table.
Another idea could be to make your own jam to serve with your wedding breakfast for an extra personal touch. You could also serve lemon curd as an alternative to jam.
You could bake your own scones or contact a local bakery to see if they can provide them for you if you’re organising the food yourself.
Cakes and Pastries
There is so much you can do for a choice of cakes and pastries for your wedding. You can even bake your cakes ahead of time and freeze them.
When I got married I was working as a chef so had access to a large catering supplier which is where the majority of my cakes and pastries came from. Most were frozen and we defrosted them at the venue the day before the wedding.
You could also use cash and carry if you need to buy items in bulk.
Afternoon tea is usually served with bite-sized morsels although you may want to serve some whole cakes too to ensure there is plenty to eat for everyone.
You could serve desserts in a miniature form too, to give a bit of variety. Desserts such as mousse or posset are often served in shot glasses and make a lovely addition to afternoon tea.
Savoury pastries such as vol-au-vents and mini quiche are a great way to ensure there are plenty of savoury options as well as sweet.
Cakes:
Bite-sized Brownies or Blondies
Orange Polenta Cake (great GF option)
Pastries:
Mini Chocolate / White Chocolate Eclairs
Desserts:
Wedding Afternoon Tea Menu Ideas
As I said above, the main thing to remember with afternoon tea is to make sure there is a good choice of flavours, textures and colours on your menu, as well as choosing food that you and your partner love and will enjoy on your special day.
To cover all bases with a menu, I would typically go with four sandwich fillings, (two meat, one fish, one veggie) a meat and veggie option of something else (in this case quiche/pasty) and then mix up the flavours of the sweet elements so in the example below I’ve gone for one classic cake on the assumption most people like it (Victoria sponge) one chocolate option (brownie) and fruit option (lemon posset). I then added in cheesecakes as an extra as it’s easy to customise a vanilla base with different toppings, ie strawberries, chocolate sprinkles, and honeycomb.
Finishing touches for your afternoon tea menu could include fresh fruit such as strawberries, herbs for decoration or even small biscuits to go with the tea such as macarons on mini shortbread fingers.
Of course, this is just an example and should be adapted to suit your own needs, but please so use it as a starting point if you need one.
Wedding Afternoon Tea Menu Example
Selection of Sandwiches: Roast Beef & Horseradish, Coronation Chicken, Smoked Salmon & Cucumber, Egg Mayonaise & Cress
Homemade fruit and plain scones served with strawberry jam and clotted cream
Pasteries including mini Cheese & Onion Quiche, filled vol-au-vents and bite-sized pasties
Homemade cakes and desserts; individual Victoria sponge, lemon posset, chocolate and hazelnut brownie and a selection of mini cheesecakes.
Which Teas To Serve At Afternoon Tea At Your Wedding
Of course, it wouldn’t be afternoon tea without, well, tea!
We served tea boxes at our wedding, each with a selection of individually wrapped tea bags including English breakfast, Earl Grey and Green Tea.
As it’s a wedding you may also be serving prosecco alongside the afternoon tea but it’s also great to consider some lovely non-alcoholic option cold drink options such as cloudly lemonade or sparkling elderflower.
I hope this post has given you plenty of ideas for what to serve if you plan to do an afternoon tea at your wedding.