How To Ask About Food Allergies On An Invitation

When it comes to the wedding day, planning your wedding reception menu is probably one of the most important items you’ll want to plan in advance. Crafting a menu that everybody would enjoy can be tricky, especially when considering your guests' allergies and dietary restrictions.

Accommodating these restrictions can help make your guests feel welcome and satisfied, which is why asking your guests through the invitation is a convenient way of knowing their food allergies in advance so you can have plenty of time to plan accordingly.

Today, I’m sharing a guide on how to ask about food allergies on an invitation to help you stay on top of things and help make the wedding reception menu planning as seamless as possible.

How To Ask About Food Allergies On An Invitation

Being informed about any food allergies or dietary restrictions as far in advance as possible is the way to go. Here are creative ways to ask about food allergies on an invitation to guests so you can know how to plan a wedding reception menu.

Food allergy insert or inclosure

When crafting your wedding invitations, you can take it a step further and craft a separate insert that can be mailed with the wedding invites to ask your guests about any special dietary restrictions or food allergies that will help inform the menu.

To keep things simple, you can include a checklist to indicate common dietary restriction options such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, food allergens, and “other” where they can fill in the blank of whatever you need to know. You can set it up so the food allergy insert can be mailed and returned back to you along with the RSVP.

Include a note

A more simplified version of a separate insert is to include a note at the bottom of your RSVP cards, a note asking guests to inform you about any special dietary restrictions or food allergies. It’s important to be made aware of true medical conditions versus “preferences” so all of that information can be very clearly laid out when choosing the caterers. The wording here will be important, that way you’ll know if you need to be diligent about finding a caterer that can confidently do a gluten free meal that's safe for someone with Crohn's disease for example and ensuring your caterers use dedicated cookware for allergens to help mitigate cross contamination concerns.

To keep a record of these requests, you can ask guests to email a specially dedicated wedding email address with their special needs or contact you directly. To make sure you have enough of a heads up to plan your wedding menu, be sure to include a cutoff date. This will inspire urgency so you can have as much of a heads up about special requests as possible.

RSVP Food Allergy Wording Samples

“Please note any food allergies or dietary restrictions”
“Please advise of any food allergies”
“Please contact us by phone or email of any food allergies or dietary restrictions”
“If you have any dietary restrictions that we should be aware of please leave a note on the back of this card.”
“Do you have any food allergies or special dietary requirements? Please let us know.”