Wedding Food Tips:
Planing your wedding menu can be a little bit stressful and very expensive if you’re not careful but it is possible to save money on wedding food and still provide a nice experience for your guests.
- Plan the time of your wedding so that it falls in between meals if possible. That way if your wedding is at 2:00 in the afternoon most people will have eaten lunch and will be leaving the wedding before dinner.
- Don’t worry if you can only afford to serve cake, punch, coffee, mints and nuts at your wedding. Having been a guest at many weddings, I have never given a second thought to what I was served. There is always that one person who will have something negative to say, but if you had had an expensive sit down dinner that person would have had something negative to say about it, too.
- Delegate, delegate, delegate. I could never have pulled off my wedding or my daughter’s wedding if I hadn’t had a lot of help from friends and family. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. People love weddings and usually enjoy being a part of one. Pick one person to be in charge of the food, especially for the day of the wedding, and ask others to help you to prepare it.
Inexpensive Wedding Menus:
I will mostly be giving hints for what I call a “finger food buffet”. Finger foods are a good way to save money on wedding food, making a happy medium between just cake and punch and a sit-down dinner. Be sure to pick things that can be prepared in advance to make it easier.
The things I list are just a few ideas of things that you could use for your wedding menu. Some wedding foods will be more expensive than others. Use only what will fit into your budget.
Large platters of fruit with or without dips
- Use in-season fruit that can be prepared ahead of time without turning brown. Strawberries, kiwi, oranges and pineapple work well.
Large platters of veggies with or without dip
- Check out a garnish book at the library to learn how to make them special instead of just making the usual carrot sticks. You can also serve olives, pickles, pickled veggies, etcetera with your veggie platter.
Sandwiches
- Sandwiches should be like “tea” sandwiches, with the crusts cut off and cut into shapes like triangles, circles or diamonds.
- Most sandwiches can be made way ahead of time and frozen. Spread each side of the bread with softened butter to prevent it from becoming soggy. This really works great. Wrap well before freezing.
Cheese and Cracker Platter
- Use a variety of cheeses. Once again, these should be cut into shapes like bells, hearts or cubes.
- Use a variety of crackers, too, not only in various shapes (round, square or rectangle), but also different colors.
Cold Cut Platter
- In place of sandwiches, you can have a platter of cold cuts (attractively arranged by rolling them up) and served with a variety of small rolls or breads.
Mints*, nuts or spiced nuts
Additional Wedding Food Tips:
If you want to go one step further than just finger foods, you can add in any number of different types of salads.
Everything you serve should be attractively cut, arranged on platters and garnished. You can buy some very nice silver or crystal like platters at party stores. Don’t forget to plan for decorations for the food table.
This all may seem like a lot of work but remember, you can do a good portion ahead of time, you don’t have to serve everything listed and enlist help. Also you can cut corners in some areas. For example I will be giving you a recipe for wedding mints to make but if you don’t have time for those, just substitute some of those pastel party mints that you can buy. In the same way if you don’t want the work of “tea” sandwiches, just have a cold cut platter.
-Jill
Try this yummy Molded Party Mints Recipe!
photo by: Joits
Here are some tips to save on the cake. Find someone who bakes and decorates cakes at home. They will cheaper than the fancy bakery. Cakes ordered from your local supermarket or club store would be cheaper than a specialty bakery. Save more, by only ordering a small “wedding” style cake for the pictures and to have a top layer for the bride and groom, and ordering sheet cakes to serve the guests.
The simpler the cake the less expensive it is.The more elaborate the decorating the more the cakes cost. I have seen so many very plain and simple wedding cakes but have a beautiful elegant feel to them. Have a plain white cake made then you or a family member can tuck in a few fresh flowers here and there on it. Instant wedding cake.
Purchase bulk fresh flowers at Costco, Sam’s or your local grocer, to arrange at home, if you know how. Order the type and color of flowers in advance. Check your local craft store for classes on making bouquets and corsages. Do not make your own corsages for the wedding unless you know how, they are not easy for a beginner.
For a simple bouquet gather flowers in bunches, bind with floral tape, and tie with a ribbon. Floral tape can be tricky for first time users, so practice in advance. Don’t expect to make more detailed bouquets if you don’t have experience. Keep it simple!
Silk flowers can be arranged well in advance, so you aren’t rushed at the last minute. They can also be re-arranged if they don’t come out right the first time. Good quality silks are more expensive than fresh flowers. But they can be taken apart after the wedding and re-used to make a beautiful centerpiece, wreath, or wall swag for your home.
If you can’t do your own flowers, most supermarket floral depts. do beautiful work for much less than a flower shop.
If you want flowers to decorate, use potted blooming plants at the church and then take to the reception. You will get more bang for your buck than with floral arrangements. Purchase them inexpensively at a plant nursery or home center. Wrap with pretty foil, and tie a bow around them. Reuse in your home or yard after the wedding, or give as gifts to friends who helped with the wedding.
Check out local horticulture schools. Tawra’s did all of her flowers for almost nothing just so they could have the practice.
My sister did my wedding cake…or I should say cakes. She is good at that type of thing and wanted to take care of that as her wedding gift to us.
She did a small, round cake just for us. She used white cake and decorator white frosting and did a simple burgundy piping and used rose petals to decorate.
For the cake for the guests, she did a sheet cake and used marble cake (white and chocolate) with decorator white frosting and again used a simple burgundy piping and rose petals. On the sheet cake, she also wrote congratulations and our names.
The cakes looked really simple and elegant. We got married in January and used white, black and burgundy as our colors. Almost all of our guests comments on how nice the cakes looked. Several of the guests commented on how good the marble cake tasted and said it was the best wedding cake they ever had.
I know my sister put her time into it but otherwise it was really inexpensive for her. It saved us a lot of money. It also meant more than any other cake we could have got because my sister made it. I took pictures of the cakes and will always remember!
Our food for the reception was really good and didn’t cost a lot. We had a small, simple wedding and reception so we kept our food simple.
We had several family members helping us. My mom makes great baked beans, cole slaw and fruit salad. She made those things for us as her wedding gift to us. My husband and I bought shredded bbq pork at Sam’s Club. It was frozen and we thawed it out the night before and put it in a crockpot the morning of the wedding. My husband’s grandma made a roast and shredded beef for sandwiches (not bbq). We bought several different types of buns and chips. We had a variety of soft drinks, nuts and pastel mints and of course the cake.
Great food and very little expense!
My girlfriend is weatlhy and feared people wouldn’t come to her wedding because they couldn’t afford a gift. Instead she invited the whole church, rented a fire hall, bought paper plates and disposable cuttlery and asked us all to bring a dish instead of a gift. Worked like a charm, and we all got something we liked to eat.
My husband and I got married in the morning and had a brunch buffet reception after. I made 3 kinds of quiche, homemade smoked salmon, bagels, cream cheese,deviled eggs, banana bread,strawberry bread and blueberry bread, fruit tray and vegetable tray, seafood pasta salad, homemade chicken and apple sausage, juice, coffee and sparkling apple juice for our toast. Our cakes were a white cake and chocolate cake from Costco. We had disposable cameras around so our guests were our photographers! We had beautiful hand tied bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages from the grocery store. We also had potted plants for decorations. Our wedding was at my parents house. They had a beautifully landscaped 1/3 acre back yard and it was free. We put up canopies to shade the tables including the food tables. We had a beautiful wedding and fun reception,one my husband and I could afford with no debt at the end of the day.