Light upon coals
What says summer better than a barbecue? The very smell of food cooking over coal is so evocative of sunshine and blue skies. It can be a great way to create a casual, al fresco wedding feast. Celia Clyne says: "We do a lot of barbecue weddings, from the very casual help-yourself ones or those in tee pee-style marquees, to ones at five-star hotels where you sit down for your starter but then go outside to pick your food from the barbecue. We've even done lamb on a spit."
Matt Rickard of Food Story recommends the Big Green Egg, the Rolls Royce of barbecues and a favourite of top chefs. "It's a beautiful way of getting that charcoal flavour into food. You light the charcoal but you cook with the lid closed and once lit, it can cook for eight hours. The temperature can be regulated as low as 150°C or up very high. We have one large enough to cook 12 chickens."
Pick seasonal goodies
Simone Krieger of Krieger's Kitchen suggests using plenty of flowers - and not just for decoration. "Edible flowers are available in abundance at this time of year, so I like to make the most of them in one course of the meal. It's important to get the colour balance as well as the flavours right. Every flower has a different flavour and some work better with sweet, others with savoury."
For a salmon starter, she suggests deep purple viola or nasturtium leaves and flowers.
Clyne also recommends using plenty of summer fruits like watermelons. "We make watermelon lollies or lace a watermelon with vodka and serve it with straws in." Adam Zeitlin says that his summer wedding clients are moving away from fruit platters and instead choosing to place big bowls of cherries on the tables. "It makes sense when they are at their best during those summer months," he says.
Don't go heavy
No one wants a rib-sticking carb fest on a hot summer's day, so keep the food light. Zeitlin says: "We also find that people want to eat little or no gluten. We use thin slices of Daikon radishes, which have been lightly pickled to make them pliable, as wraps for spring rolls or duck pancakes as a carb-free option."
Get heated
"Frozen sorbet shots at the end of an evening, during the dancing, are a must to keep people refreshed," says Zeitlin, who combines lemon sorbet with gin or orange sorbet with vodka among other pairings. Wagner is another chill-out fan: "We make our own ice lollies, which might be cocktail flavours such as mojito or pina colada or infused with fresh fruits or berries. Maybe even with edible flowers." He adds that sorbets with cubes of mojito-flavoured jelly are a hot-weather favourite. "We may serve them after a meal or during the dancing."
Clyne says that ice cream is increasingly popular, with salted caramel; raspberry flapjack and honeycomb going down well. She also serves ice cream from a softwhip machine and snow cones (cones of crushed ice) - "We top cones for children with fruit syrups and ones for adults with alcohol," she says.
Take tea
Summer tea parties may sound the perfect solution for an al fresco wedding but do not think of them as the budget option, cautions Rickard: "Tea can be expensive to execute well. Admittedly, ingredient costs are low, but much of what you will be serving - for instance the scones and sponge cakes - must be cooked freshly on the day. That requires a small army of kitchen staff." In Rickard's view presentation can also be tricky - "You'll more than likely need at least 40 three-tier cake stands, so it can be difficult to get this authentic and perfect."
