Autumn Wedding Menu Ideas From the Fire - What I Cook When the Light Goes Gold

Ask most couples when they picture an outdoor wedding and they say June. I understand why. But if you asked me when I would rather be standing at the fire, I would say the second week of October, every time.

Autumn gives a fire cook three things summer never does. The light is low and gold, so the flames look like something instead of vanishing into glare. The air is cool enough that people want to stand near the heat rather than away from it. And the larder is at its absolute best: the game season has opened, the last of the orchard fruit is in, and the roots and squashes have had a full summer to sweeten.

This is what I actually put on the fire between September and November, and how I build an autumn wedding menu around it.

Start With What Is In Season

The mistake I see in a lot of wedding menus is that they are written in March for an October date, and they read like a summer menu with the salads swapped out. Autumn deserves its own menu, not an edited one.

• Venison: Roe and fallow are in season and in peak condition. Haunch over the embers, loin seared hard and served pink, or slow-cooked shoulder that falls apart at the touch of a spoon
• Pheasant, partridge and wild duck: The birds arrive in October and are the most autumnal thing you can serve. Spatchcocked and cooked fast over a hot bed, or wrapped in bacon and roasted in the cooler zone
• Pork: Autumn is when pigs were traditionally slaughtered, and a whole shoulder over a low fire for eight hours is the best thing you can do with a cold afternoon
• Squash, beetroot, celeriac: Straight into the embers, skin on, until the outside is black and the inside is sweet and smoky. No pan, no oil, nothing to wash up
• Apples, pears, quince and damsons: Roasted in the dying heat for pudding, or cooked down into something sharp to cut through the richness of the meat
• Wild mushrooms: Ceps and chanterelles if we can get them, cooked in a heavy pan on the grill with a lot of butter

A Sample Autumn Wedding Menu

This is close to what we served at a wedding in the Cotswolds last October for 110 guests. I have kept it exactly as it went out, because a menu that has fed a real crowd is worth more than one that only looks good on paper.

On arrival, cooked in front of the guests:

• Venison and juniper sausages, split and charred, on toasted sourdough with quince
• Ember-roasted beetroot with whipped goat curd and hazelnut
• Pheasant thigh skewers with a sticky apple glaze

The feast, served to the table on boards:

• Whole haunch of fallow venison, cooked over oak and carved at the fire
• Slow-roasted pork shoulder, crackling done separately over the hot end so it actually shatters
• Whole roasted squash, split and dressed with brown butter and sage
• Charred hispi cabbage with smoked garlic
• Celeriac, potato and thyme gratin baked in the embers
• Blackberry and sloe jus, bread from the fire, proper butter

Pudding:

• Fire-roasted apples and pears with salted caramel and crumble crumbs, served warm, because it is October and warm pudding is the point

Notice what is not on there. No salads that go limp in the cold. No pale, delicate things that need a warm plate to survive. Everything is designed to be eaten outdoors in a jumper, and to taste better for it.

Summer food fights the weather. Autumn food agrees with it. When the air is cold and the fire is roaring and someone hands you a plate of venison and roasted squash, the whole day makes sense in a way it never quite does in July.
- Cai

Timing the Day for Shorter Light

The practical difference with an autumn wedding is daylight. By late October the sun is gone by half past five, and that changes how I plan the cooking.

We light the fire earlier and we get the long cooks on well before the ceremony. The slow shoulder and the big haunch go on in the morning, so by the time guests arrive they are walking into the smell of it. The fast cooking, the skewers and the searing, happens in the golden hour while the photographer is losing their mind at the light.

Then, once the sun drops, the fire becomes the heart of the evening. We keep it built up, guests gravitate to it, and the evening food comes off it in the dark. There is nothing in a summer wedding that matches a fire at night in October with a crowd around it.

What About the Weather?

You will worry about rain. Every autumn couple does. I have written a whole piece on cooking in the rain, but the short version is that we cook under cover, the fire does not care, and your guests will be under the marquee or in the barn regardless. Cold is not a problem either. Cold is what makes the fire wonderful.

What I would say is this: an autumn date is often easier to get at the venue you want, it is often cheaper, and the food is better. If you have not thought about it, think about it.

If you would like to talk through an autumn menu for your own date, get in touch. The 2027 autumn weekends are already going.