How did you do your....

inkie

Why don't you approach a hotel that you like, which has a classy room - say that you want to make a booking for a family meal for X people - don't mention wedding as the price will just hike up

or

go for the late afternoon wedding option (we did this ) and had the buffet running straight into an evening disco.

Contains_Mild_Peril

_Kate_ wrote: »

Hi,
We booked a large "ballroom" above a pub and had caterers. This worked really well for us as we wanted to have it quite informal. We also enjoyed the fact that there were still plenty of nibbles about when we (esp me) were a little worse for wear....and had to sober up for the taxi home

Congratualtions on your wedding, hope all goes well :j

Can you still get big pub rooms with outside catering? Yay! My sister is planning her wedding and thought she'd probably have to settle for something like a church hall if she wanted to organise her own catering. I've never been much of a fan of formal sit-down meals at wedding receptions: buffets always seem much more popular.
In reply to the OP's question, I had originally planned to organise catering myself (do it on the cheap with some help from my friends), but my mum offered to pay for the venue's buffet instead as a wedding present, and I foolishly agreed. I don't know how much she paid for it, but if it was more than about £1.50 a head she was totally ripped off. Everything was either overcooked, stale or both, there was a complete lack of any sense of imagination - nothing even remotely fancy, and a dire shortage of vegetarian options.
Moral of the story - do your research!

sarahlouise210

We had our reception in the church hall next to the church ...everyone just walked over ! We got our local sandwich shop to do the catering and it was perfect...proper good quality buffet food that people still comment on 6 years later! I decorated the hall myself in the morning of the wedding, made all the table decorations etc ..even did my bouquet and the buttonholes. We bought all the drink ourselves and had a free bar. You have to decide what you really want out of your wedding ...do you want to spend thousands on your friends and relatives in an overpriced hotel..or do you want to have a good time and not be in debt.?? I chose the latter...and am so glad I did! It was not stuffy..it was really laid back and friendly - and the satisfaction from doing a lot of the arrangements yourself is fantastic.

funky-footprints

We hired a building and caterers.

We had a set menu (Beef roast) and the only one to complain was my nephew who only eats 'sausages' and mashed pototato. But that in my eyes was his parents fault and i wasnt faffing about having something special done for him. Though we did write on the invitation to let us know if there were any veggies/dietary requirements. I dont think fussy 7 year old falls into that gap. In the evening we had Beef Rolls, salads etc.

There was a choice then of 4 deserts. Rhubard crumble with custard, rhubarb crumble with icecream, volevants or just icecream ..lol !!!!!

Rachie_B

funky-footprints wrote: »

We hired a building and caterers.

We had a set menu (Beef roast) and the only one to complain was my nephew who only eats 'sausages' and mashed pototato. But that in my eyes was his parents fault and i wasnt faffing about having something special done for him. Though we did write on the invitation to let us know if there were any veggies/dietary requirements. I dont think fussy 7 year old falls into that gap. In the evening we had Beef Rolls, salads etc.

There was a choice then of 4 deserts. Rhubard crumble with custard, rhubarb crumble with icecream, volevants or just icecream ..lol !!!!!

do ya mean profiteroles ? lol

Tam_Lin

We kept it small (about 50 people) and put a marquee in the garden, while friends covered the food preparation. It was lovely - more personal than hiring somewhere.

heather38

we had a hotel with a sit down meal. it was £27.95 per person plus £4.95 for drinks. and then we had a buffet with the disco at £3.95 per head.
we had 70 at the day but the food was lush
my DH's gran paid for the food otherwise we would have got married later and only had one buffet in the evening.

lucy_w86

heather38 wrote: »

we had a hotel with a sit down meal. it was £27.95 per person plus £4.95 for drinks. and then we had a buffet with the disco at £3.95 per head.
we had 70 at the day but the food was lush
my DH's gran paid for the food otherwise we would have got married later and only had one buffet in the evening.

Say you have 70 people for a sit down meal and it costs £25.00 per head. The you have the evening bit and altogether there are 150 guests and you have a buffet. If the buffet costs £5.00 per head is that £5.00 x 150 people????

ajaxgeezer

We are having a late wedding, then the reception is at my local golf club. Buffet is £7 a head, they'll do corkage (£3) on cava and champagne but not wine, and I can get a members discount on everyone's arrival drinks. The cava and champagne is from Tesco wine club using voucher codes on here. All in all the reception shouldn't cost any more than £1250 for 100 people including buffet, bar drink on arrival and champagne (shhh!) toast.

chergar

When we got married we went to a local hotel that had just been refurbished and was trying to promote itself.

We only had 25 for the meal including drinks on arrival and wine on the table. The menu had a choice of starters/main/dessert (3 of each which we picked ourselves) and tea/coffee. We then had a buffet for 80 people (although i think it was 120 that came but there was plenty) this included chicken drumsticks, chicken pakora, sandwiches, pizza slices, sausage rolls, salad. We also stayed in the hotel that night and had their resident dj instead of a band. The whole hotel bill came to about £1100 (I think it was a bit less than this).

The hotel also offered to decorate the room for us but dh, mum, sister and I all went down the night before and decorated it the way we wanted (hotel staff helped and we got drinks for free whilst doing it) and I had some ballons and stuff that the hotel put out the next day for me.

It was 5 and a half years ago.