7 tips on stretching your wedding food budget
Budgeting Advice
By
on December 05, 2011
43
Photo by Honeysuckle Photography.
We know that you can NEVER have a shortage of budget-stretching ideas. I previously gave you these recession-friendly wedding budget ideas, but let's get food-specific in this installment, shall we?
1. Time is on your side
Have an afternoon wedding and stick to appetizers, serving heavy appetizers instead of a seated meal. Remember, appetizers don't always have to be fancy! Think fresh fruit, gourmet cheeses and crackers, salsa bar, mini tea sandwiches, local veggies, or deli platters.
Alternately, consider a brunch wedding. Take it from Tasha and Andrew:
Our reception was a brunch with lots of music and dancing. We saved so much money having a brunch wedding.
2. Potluck weddings!
Ah yes, the ever-controversial potluck wedding — Is it tacky? Is it the best idea ever? I'd say that depends on how well your friends and family members can cook. 
In Sarah & Chris' case everything went wonderfully:
I handmade all of our invites and asked the guest to bring food instead of a gift, something home made, special to them — their favorite food. Everybody ate, and raved about each other's recipes.
3. Rent a food truck.
I know MY favorite wedding reception dinner has been from the In and Out truck. But not all food trucks have to be um… not so great for your health. Food trucks are going gourmet these days, but the prices are staying reasonable. Try googling "food truck catering" in your area! Plus the photo ops are always fun:
4. Bake it yourself
Bake your own wedding dessert. You can always do cupcakes or make wedding cookies instead of a fancy wedding cake. Our combine the potluck idea with the cake baking idea and pull off a collaborative wedding cake quilt.
5. BBQ
If a potluck sounds like a lot of work (logistics and what-not) then a barbecue wedding might be right up your alley. Turn your wedding reception into a cookout with hamburgers, hot dogs, and grilled veggies. (Ok, I'm getting hungry now.) If you don't want to man the grill yourself, hire a local barbecue joint to cater a la Charla and Joel:
As graduate students, we had to do it on the cheap. The main cost was the catering — pulled pork, ribs, chicken, honey rolls and sides a la Slow Ride BBQ out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. At $11 a plate, the yummy food didn't break the bank.
6. Skip fancy cocktails
Just serve beer and wine. You can always use our tutorial on how to use custom wine labels to save money on your wedding booze. Or, hell, save a bunch of dough and skip alcohol all together.
7. Friends are your friend!
Know one or several people who are culinary whizzes? Talk to them about whether they'd feel comfortable sharing their cooking skills as their wedding gift. I've seen this exchanged pulled off flawlessly at many a wedding.
Now I turn it over to you — what ways did you come up with to save money on your food and catering?
About Megan Finley
Megan Finley is the Managing Editor for Offbeat Bride and the Associate Publisher for the Offbeat Empire. When she's not slaving away for the Empire, she's sharing her dork side on her own blog and on Twitter @meganfinley.
Juls said
We made the food and drink for our wedding, catering for 150 to have two hot meals, champagne for toasts and a couple of cocktails each. It cost us around £400. We did it by brewing our own elderflower champagne for toasts, making Ginger beer and strawberry vodka for cocktails. Food wise, for evening meal the week before we cooked two massive pots of chilli ( one meat, one veggie) and froze them, defrostig them the day before the wedding, and heating then up on the day. We barbecued chicken too, and bought cheese, nachos and tortillas to accompany the chilli. We asked friends to bring salads and deserts if they liked instead of wedding gifts. At night time we barbequed baked potatoes, and served them with haggis and cheese and left overs.
Evee said
Our venue is a summer camp and it's part of the agreement that we use them for catering. So for us, some of these options won't work. But what we did do is pick a menu that is cheaper to make, and thus cheaper to serve. We are doing pasta dishes, which are way cheaper than a typical chicken/beef dinner plate, and easy to customize for our special diet guests (for vegans and veggies we can get vegan pasta and for my uncle with Celiacs we can do gluten-free pasta). We'll spend more than if we did potluck, but at least we're doing the cheapest option while still using the camps kitchen.
katie said
i really hate when venues do this. they will lose my business if they try to do something like this with me. my boyfriend and i are both chefs, and so for our dinner (for our hypothetical future wedding lol) we want our other chef friends to each cook a course. venues that you have to use their catering just wont even be an option for me…..
Heather said
So, my fiance and I decided to do a brunch wedding as well, but the problem we've run into is that the venue we're using does not allow outside catering and they're somehow trying to charge us $60/head for brunch!! Everytime we try to lower it, the menu just looks sparse. I love the idea of serving predominantly appetizers, but what other suggestions do you have for this one?
LOLBear said
Ditch that venue and find another one. It can't be worth it for $60 a head. That's nuts.
We got married at a modern art museum that charged us only 24$ per head for brunch WITH an omelet station, fresh fruit, bacon, pastries, eggs, home potatoes, french toast, and mimosas.
Rowany said
Agreed. Sounds like "wedding tax" to me. Have you looked at their menu for non-wedding (eg corporate) events? If you really can't leave the venue I would try to leverage any price difference you see to argue that they're trying to price-gouge you.
Cathryn said
We had BBQ from our favorite place here in Raleigh, NC! It's my favorite food, so I was happy to be able to eat what I really loved. We also made our own beer and served wine from Trader Joe's that we love. We still have food left over (that I need to rescue from our kind friends with the deep freeze…) and people still talk about how great the food/beer was. I wouldn't have it any other way!
RMJ said
We had HUGE food budget issues. Our original plan was to do a cookout DIY, but the size of the wedding (130 folks) and the fact that we were also hosting made it untenable.
Eventually, we went for pizza and subs from a local joint and grocery store sides. Everyone was satisfied, vegetarians were accommodated, and it shaved $400 off our budget. The pizza was way more popular than the subs – there were a ton leftover.
Tiinia said
We knew we wanted Mexican food, mostly enchiladas, at the wedding, but were a little concerned about the cost, and practicality of having kind of a messy food options. We found out that a local family owned taqueria we eat at at least once a week will cater a buffet. Guest will get to choose from 2 or 3 entrees with their choice of meat and rice and beans all around $7 a plate.
Miranda said
YAY for local ethnic eateries!! If you aren't locked into a catering thing via your venue, this is the BEST choice EVAR! Local Indian place, or Chinese place, or Thai place, or Mexican place, or whatever you love. So affordable, so yummy, and so kind to your local economy and your own pocket book!
Charis said
This is pretty much exactly how we did our afternoon wedding, and we spent $280 on food for 60 people. We had fruit and vegetable trays from Publix, chips, hummus, salsa,guacamole, mini bagels and tubs of cream cheese. My stepmom made punch and cheesecake,and one of my girlfriends baked a gazillion cupcakes. Extra win: These were all cold foods, so no one had to worry about stuff coming out of the oven or staying warm.
I felt a little guilty for not having nicer food, but no one complained.
Kristin said
We used Hy-Vee (grocery store) for a buffet dinner of fish, ham, Chinese, & tacos. 80 people, less than $800. We had lemonade, coffee, and water for drinks. We paid a woman from the church to do a dessert buffet $350 with tons left over. Considering the catering route would have cost at least $25 per person, we had good food at a great price.
That said, if we hadn't had so many guests traveling to attend our wedding, I would have suggested having a pot-luck wedding dinner. I LOVED pot-luck dinners when I was a kid. You can't beat spaghetti at a pot-luck dinner.
At the bowling alley after dinner, we spent about $300 for beer, soft drinks, and snacks. I'm very happy with what we spent on food & drink, and we could have spent less b/c we ordered too much food from each vendor!
Gabrielle said
It's almost like I special requested this post! Thank you, OBB! Having good food is SO important to me at our wedding, but I am not swimming in money! I am feeling a brunch reception. A potluck is definitely something we've thought about doing, but IDK how it's actually going to go. Thanks for reassuring me that tacky is okay
.
Miriam said
At our wedding we saved a bundle by only paying for a wine bar. If guests wanted cocktails, they had to pay for them themselves. We also skipped a fancy hor dourves course and only served fresh fruit and veggies. No one noticed the difference!
Dejah said
Hell yes I'm doing a potluck and making my own cake! The downside to going potluck is that you have to rely on your friends and family to actually bring stuff, which sometimes can be nerve-wracking (a worry I have myself), but between my mom, myself, and a few core friends, I think we should be fine if that happens.
Teffer said
A friend of mine had a potluck wedding this summer, and as part of her online RSVP, she had a sign-up for the potluck (with categories: side, main, salad + dressing) If you signed up for the potluck, you got a reminder email two weeks or so before the wedding. There was plenty of food!
Don't worry about people bringing stuff— they'll take it seriously. It's a wedding, not just a backyard potluck.
Mary B. said
We had a brunch reception, and man oh man did it help to keep costs down. Our main dishes were eggs benedict, eggs florentine, and mini pancakes with all kinds of toppings, and we also had salads, fresh fruit, meat and cheese platters, and the most delicious cold salmon I have ever eaten. A ten a.m. ceremony followed by brunch also helped to keep alcohol related costs down, as people don't really booze it up that time of day (we offered mimosas, orange juice, punch, tea, coffee, and had a few bottles of Baileys on hand in case people wanted to spike their drink). Brunch is a great option to keep costs down, and also if crazy party drinking isn't your thing. Plus: eggs benny! I don't remember what the cost per head was, but I think it was about half of what we would have paid for a supper reception in our region.
Emily X said
These are great ideas. An unexpected perk of making your own cake is also that you have to test the recipes, so you get to have cake tasting parties! I had one last night and it was fun, and then I had a huge platter of leftover cake wedges to bring to my holiday potluck at work today
And a comment based on having limitations due to venue, as a couple people have mentioned – we have serious ones, i.e. professional catering required, from a list of acceptable caterers, and only available for events at night, so not so much with the brunch. We just said, "ok, we will spend 60% of our budget on food and make the really serious budget decisions elsewhere." Totally happy with this choice.
jenner said
I love the idea of brunch instead of a supper. But our date is on a Thursday so I don't think that will work. I think it's going to be an afternoon wedding/reception, but potluck might work. Thanks for the tips.
Bethany said
I'm doing a 2:00 wedding in December, and having Christmas-y desserts for food! Cookies, fudge, brittle, summer sausage…We're going to gather friends and family in the church and have a huge baking party :3
SamB said
I just LOVE that you're listing summer sausage as a dessert! My kinda woman!
channamasala said
The thing to consider with potluck weddings is not just whether or not your friends can cook, it's whether or not they:
a.) have the time to cook – is your circle generally super busy?
and
b.) live near enough that they can actually bring a dish. If even a large minority of your guests our out of town, they won't be able to prepare and bring anything to a potluck: hotels don't generally provide kitchens, not everyone can borrow a local friend's kitchen …and who has the time to cook when they've flown in from out of town anyway? Plus they'd have to buy all the ingredients locally, rather than raiding their own pantries. Potlucks really only work when everyone or very nearly everyone is local.
Ariel Meadow Stallings said
Yep, both issues addressed in the post Megan linked to: http://offbeatbride.com/2009/0…ding-tacky
channamasala said
I would also say to save money, beer and wine at a place that charges per-head or bar prices per drink to the couple is still expensive (although cheaper than full open bar). If possible, find a venue/food plan that allows you to stock your own bar. We did that and for $600 had a nearly full open bar (beer, wine, whiskey, rum, vodka and gin and a small bottle of Kahlua with basic mixers – soft drinks and juices, some lemons…no tequila, bottled mixers or ingredients for fancier mixed drinks). It was so much cheaper than even the cheapest beer-and-wine-only per-head bar option at other venues.
It could have been slightly cheaper without the spirits, but we would have provided the soft drinks/juices anyway, so cutting out hard liquor would have saved comparatively little.
Heather said
We are going to do the potluck but we are doing it as part of a Cherokee wedding tradition. The tradition is the town, community, or clans provided a wedding feast and then we party as long as we can.
Gealltanas said
I saw a wedding on the telly once where they had a baked potato buffet for the food – loads of spuds and loads of toppings (think chilli, coleslaw, cheese, onion, sour cream, salads etc). I always thought it was a groovy idea.
Rachel said
I honestly didn't know people served "food" food at weddings until I started reading wedding blogs! I've been to just one wedding recently where they served dinner and had an open bar.
Most weddings in our area serve cake, punch, and have some mints and nuts in a bowl. That's pretty much it. And alcohol would be seen as rather risque, generally.
Kate said
If you really want to do a full dinner, going vegetarian can save a ton of money. One of my friends, a vegetarian, had a minimum amount she had to spend at her venue and after going veggie they actually had to add an hour of open bar–not a bad problem to have!
Andrea M said
One of the nice things about marrying into a majority-Mormon family, my booze budget is awesome! I'm probably going to just get a case of prosecco and a bunch of orange juice for mimosas, the rest is a whole lotta pop and sparkling cider. As for food, I'm figuring some sort of fingery stuff, all I really demand is hummus, my most beloved appetizer.
synchronia said
We're doing a food truck, and I'm really excited about it! Most of the gourmet food trucks in LA will serve unlimited food for two hours for $15-$20/person. We got really lucky and found a venue with a roll-up garage door, so no one will have to go outside to get the food.
Catie said
So I just thought of this, and now that I have, I feel really smart, so I thought I would share.
As long as you have kitchen access at your venue/around your venue and a friend/family member with freezer space, why not just make, say, a big pan of lasagne a week up until your wedding?
That way, for budget minded people (like me) you're not blowing a ton of money on the catering at once, just 20-30 bucks here and there (and hell, just make 2 after your paycheck if you get paid every other week like I do). You could also save a bunch of money by ordering wholesale noodles and sauce, or ask your family members to help you out by making their famous meat sauce or whatever.
Then, just wrap them (well!) and freeze until the day of your wedding. Get to the venue, set the ovens to 400, and in like an hour, lasagne for errybody, at little to no stress to you.
If you get engaged, say, 6 months before the wedding, that's a potential of at least 25 lasagnas, and assuming your lasagna feeds 20 people, you just fed 500 people for 20 minutes of work every Saturday night. Not bad!
It could be fun, too: you could try different recipes and variations and types.
Just saying.
Love me some lasagna.
Rachel said
Wow. what a great idea!!
Heather said
This was our rehearsal dinner! A couple lasagnes went in the oven while we were setting up the day before, voila! Dinner!
Marcypantz said
We used our favorite local restaurant for catering (good 'ole southern cooking). With extra side items, beverages and mountains of rolls – it still came out to only $15 a person. They made sure all our side items were vegetarian friendly and were super awesome to work with. I say check with your local restaurants and see if they cater…can't hurt…