Wedding food!

xxvickixx

I did a buffet for 100 people for my wedding reception, it was about £100 for the food, we used plastic table cloths and disposable plates that match our colour scheme. The food was all nice stuff and far more fancy and luxurious than the cheapest catered option we were quoted about £10 per head for really basic sarnies, sausage rolls etc.

It took a lot of planning, food storage and preparation time though but I had a few helpers and I really enjoyed it. I felt so proud and a lot of people said it was really good food.

We did have the benefit that we married abroad and held the reception a week after we got home so I did have time to spend doing the organising.

We also brought in some wine and cava, the venue was really good about that. We got this all on a trip to Calais very cheaply too so our guests could have a few drinks on us too!

Lunar_Eclipse

xxvickixx wrote: »

I did a buffet for 100 people for my wedding reception, it was about £100 for the food, we used plastic table cloths and disposable plates that match our colour scheme. The food was all nice stuff

How? I'm not sure I'd think it was possible to feed 100 people a (proper) meal for £1 each, especially a celebratory meal as opposed to sandwiches and crisps. I'm guessing you made all the food yourselves, so what did you eat and where did it come from?

I think the food for our evening buffet cost about £10/head ten years ago now. I daren't mention how much our wedding breakfast (lunch) for 35 people was, but it was in the restaurant of a small beautiful castle which we had to ourselves. I think details and quality are important (to me) so I would choose classic linen tablecloths, nice cutlery, china and champagne if I did it all again. Weddings; lovely!

So I think the OP's £2000 sounds very reasonable, but you should look into alternatives if you feel otherwise.

fsdss

we had the local WI do our evening buffet, and what a great spread they did for us. if i remember rightly we were about £200 for the food for a hundred people, and they even dressed the village hall, and church with flower arrangements included in that cost (but this was 14 yrs ago) the ladies loved doing this for us and in fact i think the suggestion came from one of the members

come to think of it - i can do very good teas for the local cricket club (approx 22 people) when its my day rostered, for less than £20, so £100 is not impossible, that includes selection of 4 sandwiches, sausage rolls / pastries / samosas etc, 2 large cakes, crisps, home made pizzas, fresh fruit such as pineapple / melon and scones with cream.

i think it does make a difference though to have proper plates / table coverings.

xxvickixx

Hi,

I can't remmeber much now as it was 5 years ago, we had sandwiches in chicken and pistachio, egg and maybe cheese? I did a couple of huge bowls of pasta salad and rice salad which was very cheap - made from scratch. We had veg sticks and dips - the dips were home made. We did buy from Costco or farm foods some spring rolls/jalepeno poppers/samosas/onion rings type bits quite cheaply, I made a big potato salad too. I bought some diced turkey which is cheap, marinaded some in jerk sauce and some in home made tikka and made tiny kebabs on cocktail sticks which I then cooked in the oven. We did have some crisps, nuts etc. I also made some mini pasry bites from puff pastry and various toppings like roasted onion and cheese and sundried tomato and herb I think.
I did some tortilla wraps with various fillings and then sliced them up so they were little spirally circles which looked pretty.
I made a couple of pavalovas and bought some gatteaux from Costco.

I did garnish everything well to make it attractive, for example I topped the kebabs with a tiny wedge of lemon or lime and the rice sald had slices of egg and tomato on top.

There was probably loads more I have forgotten about though but just some ideas there.

We just didn't have the money for a luxurious sit down dinner so did the best with what we had. We wanted everyone to have fun and enjoy the food and company so the fact that we didn't have proper table linen or crockery didn't detract from what we wanted to achive, but that's us and I know wouldn't suit everyone.

fsdss

or you could go for a hot buffet / bbq?

Pitlanepiglet

I think it's easy to think that DIY catering is cheap and to then look back and think it was but it all adds up, banqueting roll, napkins, paper plates etc. and yes it's very very different doing that a week after your wedding than trying to do it on the day.

I'm glad we did DIY but I wouldn't have done it without "staff" to deal with it on the day (the local WI or granny or aunties friend's is a fab idea). All the incidental costs do add up though and it's a huge amount of work at a time when you and your family are under huge amounts of stress already.
We did ours out of Costco and the advantage of them is that if you end up with unopened packets of plates/plastic cutlery etc. you can take them back for a refund.
Our biggest problem was getting the wine cold (we also bought ours in France) - we had a February wedding and hadn't planned a cooling solution as we planned to just leave the wine outside and thought it would be cold enough - it turned out we had a beautifully warm weekend and slightly warm white wine and bottled water

I'd highly recommend DIY'ing, but you need a really good support network and you need to consider honestly whether those nearest and dearest to you are going to enjoy your wedding if they are chief cook and bottle washer.

msb5262

Hello OP,
I've done a bit of catering in my time - this is the most useful advice I was ever given:
When you're planning a meal for a large number of people, imagine a plate of food for each person.
Use this to work out quantities (eg. one quarter of a ham sandwich, one quarter of a salmon sandwich, one samosa, half a tomato, 2 bits of lettuce etc) then multiply by the number of people you are feeding.
So for 20 people, you would need 5 ham sandwiches, 5 salmon sandwiches, 20 samosas, 10 tomatoes and 40 bits of lettuce (perhaps 2 iceberg lettuces).
Then you can plan the amounts to prepare and get a fairly exact shopping list and an idea of probable costs.

Bear in mind that when more people are eating, they will eat less on average than a smaller number; also that women choose more salad, greenery and vegetarian options than men.
Obviously children eat less again and won't usually choose very spicy foods or anything which is totally unfamiliar.
Also remember to bear the seasons in mind, both for availability (hard to get fresh raspberries in quantity in the middle of winter) and cost (fresh raspberries very expensive in middle of winter!).
Can't remember anything else useful at present but will think on.
HTH
MsB

minimoneysaver

For my mothers "big" number brithday, we organised our local indian takeaway to deliver huge pans of rice, mild curry and spicy curry to our house. It worked out very cheap per head and there was mountains of food. Everyone was delighted to not be fed on curly sandwiches etc. Have to say we were finding rice in strange places for weeks afterwards, but it was a brill party. I can't see why it wouldn't work for a wedding. Likewise maybe your local chinese would be willing to quote too. Worth calling round if it is something you may be interested in. Good luck.

Pitlanepiglet

We had our local chippy deliver trays of half sized bits of fish and trays of chips to pad out the food that we had prepared. We got a really good deal (off season in a seaside resort) and everyone loved it! Wasn't going to mention it as I thought it might be a bit low brow for some!

msb5262

I've got to say, the Indian, Chinese and fish & chips options all sound fantastic. I would definitely be considering these...