How to Plan a Vegan Wedding | Cake & Catering

This is the first post our our vegan wedding series sponsored by WeddingWire! We’ve been using WeddingWire to help us plan the wedding, and discover and keep track of our favorite vendors. We’re so excited to be getting married, and to share our planning process with you. Stay tuned for more insight and tips in the coming months!! 

Wow! So we’re really doing this. Maxx and I are getting married. A little background about us—we’ve known each other for over 10 years, and by the time we get married it will be 10 years dating! We met in 2008 when we were both studying in Madrid, Spain during our junior year of college. I liked him right away, but he was too oblivious to notice 😂 We both moved to New York in 2009, moved in together in 2011, and moved to LA together last summer. We’re both serious vegans 🙂

Speaking of being vegan, we’re having a 100% vegan wedding in magical Topanga Canyon this spring ✨ Since vegan weddings are still a little unorthodox, we’re going to be sharing our planning process with you over the next couple of months. We want to show you how practical it has become to make sure that everything from your shoes to your food to your decorations are vegan-friendly. Even your meat-eating family will enjoy themselves and be able to eat delicious food!

Since we’re food people we couldn’t wait to share our tasting experience and tips with you. For our vegan wedding Maxx and I taste-tested 2 fantastic caterers and 2 talented bakers. You’ll find out who we’ve chosen when the wedding arrives in late April—we’ll be posting plenty of photos and video to social media—so stay tuned!. In the meantime, let me give you a taste of how our tastings went.

But before we get into the details, here are a few tips to keep in mind when planning the food for your vegan wedding:

• If you cannot find a great 100% vegan caterer, use WeddingWire to search for local caterers who can cook vegan. Be sure to search their reviews for the word “vegan”, to get a better sense of how well they can cook veggie-friendly dishes. And of course request a taste-test well in advance of the wedding.

• Choose a venue that will allow you to choose your own outside caterer, or one that offers vegan catering in house. We said no to quite a few venues because they limited us to their “preferred caterers”, and we really wanted to have the freedom to choose anyone. We especially wanted to use a 100% vegan caterer. We found our beautiful venue on WeddingWire, and they’re amazing because they allow you to bring in any caterer, and they offer an affordable vegan menu if you choose to use their chef.

• Worried about your family not being happy with vegan food? Do your best to find a great vegan caterer who can prepare food that will be familiar to your meat-eating guests. My family loves soul food and Cajun food, so we made sure to try caterers who specialize in those cuisines.

• On a budget? The type of service you use will influence how much you’ll have to pay for food. To stay within our budget we’ve opted for a buffet dinner instead of plated, which would require more servers. This will also allow guests to meet each other in the buffet line instead of staying seated at their assigned tables. Hopefully this will also cut back on food waste because guests will be able to serve themselves.

Leave your questions about how to choose a caterer for your vegan wedding in the comment section below 🙂

Food Art Truck by Lauren Von Der Pool

We caught up with Lauren Von Der Pool’s food truck in Hollywood near Sunset & Vine. We adored the artful and utterly delicious soul food so much. I’m still thinking about it! She served us her famous cornbread “chicken” and waffles made with shiitake mushrooms and cauliflower, her crispy potatoes with mumbo sauce, a colorful “beef” curry, and a creamy chocolate and peanut butter tart. Wow!! It’s no wonder all sorts of celebrities (like Common and Venus & Serena Williams) have hired Lauren to cook for them. Girlfriend is a culinary goddess. I think our families would love her artful take on this classic cuisine. What do you think?

Krimsey’s Cajun Kitchen

It’s funny that the world’s first Cajun vegan restaurant is located in North Hollywood, but Krimsey (the owner and chef) is the real deal. She grew up in Louisiana, and now has big plans to bring her animal-free Cajun cuisine back home.

We tasted Krimsey’s étouffée, sausage po’ boy, potato salad, gumbalaya (a cross between gumbo and jambalaya), Cajun rainbow salad, cornbread, beignets, and special Mardi Gras King Cake! This is my type of food 😋 Krimsey’s dishes were lighter and cleaner than a lot of food you’ll find down south—perfect for a wedding!

Baby Love Sweetery

Can’t forget the vegan wedding cake! We met up with Krysten, baker and owner of Baby Love Sweetery, to taste some of her fantastic wedding cakes in cupcake form. She gave us 6 very tasty flavors to try: carrot cake, dulce de leche, vanilla berry, triple chocolate, churro, and salted caramel chocolate. Gosh, I’m drooling just thinking about those sweet treats. What I loved about her cakes is that they’re so moist and fluffy, and not overly sweet. Chocolate is always my favorite, so of course I liked the triple chocolate and the salted caramel chocolate best. But they were all so delicious! Krysten also bakes tarts, brownies, banana pudding, and other sweet treats, so don’t be surprised if we end up serving a variety of treats at our reception dinner.

Top Tier Treats

We found this cute West Los Angeles bakery on WeddingWire. It isn’t 100% vegan, but they have a full vegan treat menu that includes gorgeous wedding and birthday cakes, cookies, and cupcakes. We dropped by to pick up a box to take with us for an at-home cake tasting. Top Tier gave us 3 mini cakes—red velvet, chocolate, and vanilla—and a bunch of fillings, mousses, and icings to try. It was fun to mix and match. Predictably, my favorite was the chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and chocolate icing. I like chocolate 😑

We also considered a few of our favorite LA restaurants for our catering needs but didn’t have a formal tasting:

Cena Vegan: An amazing Mexican vegan food truck. Cena might be too messy for our wedding (at least for me and my white-ish dress), but it is one of my favorite places to eat in LA.

Azla: My favorite vegan Ethiopian restaurant! Azla’s food is full of flavor and spice.

Satdha: A unique vegan Thai restaurant in Santa Monica. I’m always craving their beet dyed noodles and green curry…