'Alternative' Wedding Catering ideas

jellytot83

Hi there,

We're looking at some more cost effective *but yummy* catering ideas for our wedding.

The three course sit-down is looking enormously expensive, hence the need to think differently.

We like the idea of a Spanish themed lunch, based around tapas and Paella ... but if anyone has any other ideas we'd welcome them!

We haven't really enjoyed hog roasts before, so have ruled this out...

Evening food we're almost sold on the idea of a fish and chip 'van' :T as this is good value and an appealing post-drinking option!

The wedding will be on the Surrey / Hampshire border.

Look forward to your views and ideas

Thanks

Jo and Rob

Biddy

What time of year is your wedding? And how many people? I'm sure we can come up with some suggestions...

johannalf88

We are having an afternoon tea, then fish n chips for the evening to soak up some booze too!

jellytot83

Thank you

It's April 21st 2013 - A while to go but we need to plan and budget! x

White_Sapphire

I love the idea of a tapas-style meal!! And I went to a wedding with a fish & chip van, which went down very well indeed!

Can I come to your wedding please?

MaggieBaking

In the evening we had a pancake station, not sure how cost effective it is compared to fish and chips but they were certainly yummy!

http://originalcrepes.co.uk/

jellytot83

Crepes look nice but there is no costing info....

What's everyone's view on Canapes? Nice to have or essential?

MaggieBaking

jellytot83 wrote: »

Crepes look nice but there is no costing info....

What's everyone's view on Canapes? Nice to have or essential?

I bought some Burnt Sugar fudge in bulk and served it with our welcome drink, just a canape alternative for you!

http://www.burntsugar.co.uk/

White_Sapphire

jellytot83 wrote: »

What's everyone's view on Canapes? Nice to have or essential?

Depends on the timings; if you're having an earlyish wedding that won't leave people time to eat a decent lunch beforehand, then I would say to provide nibbles of some sort, especially if the meal isn't till late afternoon. If you can bring your own caterers in though, you might be able to get cheaper options than traditional canapes.

If it's a mid-afternoon ceremony then it's less important to give people something to tide them over till the meal. As long as they have a drink in their hand they'll be happy!

continualdiamond

We had a buffet at our reception. We could of also had the fish/chips. Our venue had 3 options, the 2 mentioned and then the 3 course idea, but our wedding wasn't that kind of wedding and the buffet just seemed ideal.

We had:

* Carved honey roasted ham served with mustard mayonnaise
* Roasted leg of lamb infused with rosemary and garlic with redcurrant jelly
* Salmon fillet with a tomato, parmesan and basil crust served with a pesto dressing

* Bacon, avocado and walnut salad with orange dressing
* Egg mayonnaise with sun blushed tomatoes and crispy streaky bacon
* Green salad with garden herbs and mustard dressing
* Buttered minted new potatoes


and then a selection of breads.

We got married at 3pm, bit delayed due to registrar being stuck in traffic.

Buffet was served at 5:30pm and then our wedding cupcakes were served with pots of ice cream with flavours being mint choc chip, vanilla and fudge.

midlandsfairy

Hi Jellytot-

Are you hoping to get a caterer to provide the tapas style food? I had the same idea that a shared served starter (tapas, mezze etc style), a served main course and then our cake as our pudding would be cheaper but every single caterer I've got a quote from has charged exactly the same as if they were providing an individual plated starter, a plated main and a pudding of their making which suprised me somewhat. Worth asking them to quote for a couple of different options- we also found that buffet wasn't any cheaper than a seated meal with the caterers we looked at.

We've decided against canapes as we just can't afford that, a welcome drink, dinner and an evening buffet as well! Hoping to get away with just doing cheese and crackers in the evening- I've been shocked by how much wedding catering actually costs :S

Good luck with your research! :-)