Booking Your 2027 Wedding Caterer - How Early Is Too Early?

I get two kinds of enquiry. One says sorry, I know this is ridiculously early, we are not getting married until autumn 2027. The other says I know this is short notice, we are eight weeks out and our caterer has fallen through.

The first is not ridiculous at all. The second is a genuinely difficult conversation. So let me set out honestly when catering actually gets booked, so you can plan without either panicking or leaving it too long.

The Real Timeline

Most couples book catering somewhere between twelve and eighteen months out. That is not caterers manufacturing urgency, it is simply how the diary fills. If you are getting married in summer 2027, the sensible window to be having conversations is roughly now through to next spring.

Peak Saturdays between June and September go first, often more than a year ahead. Midweek dates and the shoulder months stay open far longer, sometimes down to a few months. So how early you need to move depends enormously on which date you have picked.

Nobody has ever regretted sorting the food early. Plenty of people have regretted leaving it.
- Cai

What You Need Before You Enquire

Less than you think. You do not need a menu, a final guest list, or any real idea what you want to eat. To give you a useful guide price I need about four things:

Your date, or the rough window if you are still deciding. A guest number, even a wide range like eighty to a hundred and twenty. The venue or the area, because travel genuinely affects the price. And a sense of the day you want, whether that is a relaxed sharing feast or something more formal.

That is enough to tell you whether we are in the right ballpark before either of us spends real time on it. Everything else can be refined for months afterwards.

Booking Early Does Not Mean Deciding Early

This is the bit that reassures most couples. Securing a caterer is about holding the date, not locking the menu. A deposit reserves your day in the diary. The food itself stays fluid right up until a few weeks before, because it has to - guest numbers move, dietaries appear, and the seasons decide what is actually good on the day.

We firm up the menu in the months before the wedding, not at the point of booking. So saying yes early costs you nothing in flexibility. Our menu planning guide covers how those choices come together when the time comes.

What Happens If You Leave It Late

Sometimes it is completely fine. Cancellations happen, midweek dates open up, and we can occasionally take a short-notice booking without any drama.

But your choice narrows to whoever happens to be free, which is exactly the wrong basis on which to pick the person feeding everyone you love. You lose the ability to compare, to taste, to sit with a decision. And on peak summer Saturdays there may genuinely be nobody good left.

If you are late, do not despair - just move quickly and be flexible on the shape of the day. And read our guide to choosing a caterer before you commit under time pressure, because that is when people get caught out.

The Short Answer

For a 2027 wedding: start conversations now if your date is a peak summer Saturday, and any time in the next six months if it is not. Enquiring costs nothing, commits you to nothing, and takes about a minute.

There is no such thing as too early. There is only leaving it until the only people available are the ones nobody else booked.

- Cai