The wedding menu was for a long time the most predictable part of the entire wedding. Soup, meat, side dish, cake. Everyone knew what was coming, nobody remembered any of it. That is slowly changing - and the change is coming from a place that until recently had nothing to do with weddings: restaurants with a star in the Michelin guide.

The logic is simple. If the couple already personalise every detail - the music, the flowers, the invitations - why should the food be the one thing left standard? More and more starred restaurants are opening dedicated events divisions, in which the same kitchen that earned the star moves to a wedding table.

Which names have entered the game

The list is not short. Mario Sandoval, with two stars, operates through El Jaral de la Mira with live cooking stations in front of the guests. Jesús Sánchez, with three stars at Cenador de Amós, brings Cantabrian tradition and holds a green star for sustainability. Nacho Manzano, also with three stars at Casa Marcial, builds bespoke menus on an Asturian base.

Also in are Francis Paniego with two stars and a Rioja kitchen, Maca de Castro with a team of over a hundred on Mallorca, Fernando Arjona with a tribute to Mediterranean cuisine, and the Echapresto brothers, whose restaurant Venta Moncalvillo also holds a green star.

What this means at a Balkan wedding

Now comes the part worth saying out loud: this is expensive. No price per guest is listed anywhere, but a three-star kitchen relocated to a wedding venue is not a service you haggle over. Here, where a wedding with two hundred guests is already a serious financial decision, this is not advice but a description of something happening in a different price league.

But the idea behind it is free. A wedding menu does not have to be the same combination you have eaten at the last eight weddings. It does not need a star to be thought through - it can be local, seasonal, made by someone who knows what they are doing rather than by a caterer serving three halls at once tonight.

Because the truth about wedding dinners is well known: guests do not remember the table plan, or the colour of the napkins. They remember whether something tasted good. And whether they had to wait an hour and a half to get it.