Cheap Wedding Catering For The Frugal Bride

Lets face it planning a wedding and wedding catering can be very taxing on the wallet.

Most people do not realize exactly how much money it costs to put a wedding together.

One of the biggest financial factors to consider when planning the wedding would be the catering for the reception. More and more couples are opting to do their own catering to help cut down on the cost of wedding.

This allows them to focus more on other things, to make their wedding event more enjoyable for all.

Perhaps they take the extra money and use it towards their honeymoon and they can also give little trinkets to their guests that they can enjoy for a long period of time.

There are many different ways you can go with your wedding catering plans for your own wedding. If you're having your reception as an outdoor event, than you can opt to do a barbecue reception where you can lay out the tables in a buffet style and have people bring a covered dish.

Picture by Jennifer Schwalm

All you have to do is cook the main course. When cooking on a grill, you have so many options of foods that you can use. Local supermarkets usually run specials on grilling meats, especially if you buy in bulk.

Keep in mind that no matter what type of menu you choose, if you're going to be outdoors for your wedding, the heat can play a big factor in what types of foods you serve.

If your reception is to be out in the open and it is a warm season, you want to be sure to help protect the food that you have put out for people. You may not want to serve certain dishes that are required to be kept warm throughout the meal so that you can eliminate the need to bring in extra ovens or heating lamps to help keep the food warm until it is served.

If you are really crafty you can choose to make your own dishes as part of your wedding catering. This can be extra special as it adds a certain flair to the meal that you're preparing for your guests.

You can even enlist other members of your family as well as friends to help with preparing meals for the reception. This is a good time to utilize your time with your wedding party. After all your wedding party is there to help you prepare the most important day of your life and I would rather trust my friends to do a good job for me than paid staff.

As a thank you, you could always arrange a little celebration get together for your helpers after the honeymoon.

You can choose to go with a buffet style meal so you don't have to worry about paying servers to serve the meals to the guests at each table. You can simply have the DJ announce what tables are up to go to the buffet and get their plates of food.

You can also opt for a country style dinner where you prepare all of food and place dishes of food on each table so people can take what they want eliminating unwanted wasting of the food, often a problem with wedding catering.

If you are opting to do all of the cooking yourself, you may want to look into buying the food in bulk. There are many different grocery markets as well as discount warehouse places that will allow you to buy large amounts of food for a cheap price.

Most of the time they offer elegant hors d'oeuvres that are frozen and can be cooked in a matter of minutes to serve to your guests quickly. Buying in bulk can save you a great deal of money and will also help you add a little bit of flair to the entire evening.

Doing the wedding catering yourself could also mean having to provide your own tables, chairs and cutlery etc. For the truly frugal amongst us I recommend asking to borrow tables and chairs for the reception from your friends.

They can be covered with plain white paper table clothes and the chairs can be decorated with paper flowers, ribbons or balloons to make them look similar.

Plates and cutlery etc can be hired for the day for a relatively small charge from catering companies but again if you can borrow plain white plates etc from friends it will certainly keep the costs down. After all the day is all about getting married not if the plates all match.

No matter what way you decide to do your wedding catering you need to be sure to keep in mind what the weather is like and what types of food you will have out.

Certain foods that are left out for long, overtime can become harmful to people, so you want to be sure you have the food iced down or keep the heating lamp on it so it stays as fresh as possible.

I once heard of a guy who was sued by the groom after half of the guests went down with food poisoning when he had left the deserts out of the fridge for a while because he wanted to make sure the wine was chilled.

The worst thing about this story is the guy was the best friend of the groom and was only trying to be helpful on the day. So food safety should always be high on your list.

Also keep the menu simple, this will cut down on preparation and costs and it has been my experience that fancy food only pleases a few people.

I once attended a wedding where a very expensive and fancy meal was laid on and all I remember hearing was people complaining that the food was too rich or not what they were used too. I didn't tell the bride, as I know it cost a small fortune to arrange.

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