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.
Kevin Walters said
These are all awesome ideas. As a caterer I would love to say that all weddings should be catered. The reality is that this is not always practical or even necessary. For smaller weddings, it just makes sense to self cater. As the number of guests grow, keep food safety in mind as you ask friends and family to provide food. The last thing you want is food poisoning episode at your wedding. Just some food for thought. Also, consider drop off catering and hire your own server. This also saves a ton.
Melissa said
The potluck thing has to be handled just right or it comes off badly. Once I was invited to a wedding (just me, no plus one) and I was instructed on the invitation to bring two potluck dishes as well as informing me where they were registered so a gift was expected as well. I didn't have enough hands to carry everything so I didn't go.
Ariel Meadow Stallings said
Yep, issues like this are all addressed in the post Megan linked to: http://offbeatbride.com/2009/0…ding-tacky
jujbird said
Be careful with brunch or finger foods-If going through a traditional caterer they are not always cheaper than a sturdy main course. It's all about the ingredients and what the caterer can do with them. Mom was a part time caterer for years, and she'd have people who were very adamant that they'd save money if they did one of these things. She'd show them the breakdown of cost, and until they saw that, they couldn't believe it.
Nia said
The only thing we did in this respect was to get our own dessert, a cupcake tower from a tiny independent vendor. We got our reception at a hotel, which had a number of advantages, but the disadvantage that they had to do the food. The cake was going to be a wedding gift of someone who changed his mind later, but seeing that the hotel desserts cost double or triple what they would at a fancy restaurant, we looked like crazy for an independent vendor. It turned out that we could get a cupcake tower for about 2 euros/person (fancy dessert: 3-4€; hotel dessert: 7 euro).
Also, if you have a sit-down meal consider skipping a course. Here, weddings have up to three stages before main course (stand-up finger food; sitting finger food; salad or appetiser; main course; dessert). We skipped the "sitting finger food". It's different in other places of course, but if you live in a place that does starter, first and main, maybe you can skip one.
Carlene said
Our catering was from a locally owned grocery store. They had an awesome hot lunch bar (not to mention an excellent selection of gourmet sodas and beers). I used to go to it when I worked nearby, and on a whim one day, I asked if they catered. Turns out they had the longest list of options, since their hot lunch menu rotated every day, and they were the cheapest around at $12 a person!
Check out Apple Market in Pensacola if you're in Northwest Florida/Southern Alabama.
Heather said
I made 12 pies for dessert at my wedding!
I made them in the weeks before the wedding and stuck them (un-baked) in the freezer. The day before the wedding I spent a couple hours rotating them in and out of the oven, and we had delicious, homemade dessert for everyone.
Cori said
We don't have a lot to spend ourselves, and I approached some friends who cater and I still can't afford their prices. There is no kitchen at our outdoor venue, so my chef fiance can't whip up anything ahead of time that can be reheated there. So we are having a cold brunch buffet we are buying/making ourselves, with croissants and pasta salad, etc for our small ceremony guests. And then for the reception of over 200 people we are having…a taco cart! There are tons of them in LA and we will end up spending about $10 per person, and it's interactive, cooked in front of you…it's like a fun activity in itself. They are even bringing a margarita machine, lemonade, churros, and they provide all the cups and plates and napkins, too. It is better than "wedding food" to me!
Andye said
The option we are using for our upcoming spring wedding is Breakfast for dinner. Our caterer is only charging us $12 per person for food. We are having a brunch style dinner with beer, wine, and mimosa fountain for 200 ppl for a little over $5000.