Food for an afternoon wedding

[Deleted User]

Why not go for a post-lunch wedding , eg about 2pm, followed by afternoon tea type light meal with wedding cake (basically sandwiches, nibbles, wedding cake) c.3.30-4pm then a later hot buffet/BBQ/Hog Roast around 8.30-9pm? perhaps keep your costs down as none of it has to be a sit down meal with courses.

We had our church ceremony at 1.30pm (so people could eat an early lunch if wanted) then a nice cold buffet with cold meats & wedding cake & fruit from 3pm while we were off having our photos taken, and a hot Indian curry buffet & salad in those big silvery dishes with burners underneath from 8pm.

koneko

joolzred wrote: »

Why not go for a post-lunch wedding , eg about 2pm, followed by afternoon tea type light meal with wedding cake (basically sandwiches, nibbles, wedding cake) c.3.30-4pm then a later hot buffet/BBQ/Hog Roast around 8.30-9pm? perhaps keep your costs down as none of it has to be a sit down meal with courses.

This is a good idea, but I think it will actually make our costs worse rather than better as the current quote is £23 per head for bbq wedding breakfast for 90 adults at about 5pm and finger buffet for 120 adults in the evening (about 8/9pm) at £14 a head which consists of sandwiches, sausage rolls, fried chicken, salads etc. If we reverse that, the total price will be more

Just trying to find a way to cut the costs a bit as I was hoping for a fairly small day invite list, but H2B has approx 60 members of family to invite!

LEJC

basic question...why are you only inviting 30 extra people to the evening do....in terms of cost wouldnt it be cheaper to invite 120 to the wedding rather than 90 to the wedding and an extra 30 in the evening....then you dont need to provide additional food later in the evening because everyone has eaten at the hog roast and the wedding flows through....
If you need something extra a little later then thats when the cake or similar comes out.....

[Deleted User]

LEJC wrote: »

basic question...why are you only inviting 30 extra people to the evening do....in terms of cost wouldnt it be cheaper to invite 120 to the wedding rather than 90 to the wedding and an extra 30 in the evening....then you dont need to provide additional food later in the evening because everyone has eaten at the hog roast and the wedding flows through....
If you need something extra a little later then thats when the cake or similar comes out.....

This could be a good solution - invite everyone, shift back your wedding time to say, around 3.30ish, serve (bbq or the cheaper buffet) food at 6pm, and then kick into your disco/music with wedding cake & maybe bowls of crisps, nuts at around 9pm? Then you're only paying for one set of meals for 120+ guests and not two

koneko

The main reason is that there isn't enough room for everyone at the wedding ceremony itself (smallish church), its also possible that the evening number may increase as H2B hasn't decided whether to invite more work friends or not (I'm not as I don't really socialise with them out of work) but the day number is pretty fixed as its only family and very close friends.

If I'm honest, in an ideal world, I'd prefer that the day guests were the only guests full stop with no extras later, but the evening guests are made up of people we are inviting to be polite (they invited us to theirs etc), people H2B's family have told us must have an invite and his work pals. I suppose this is why I'm not keen to spend thousands of pounds feeding them!

LEJC

OK...what about inn the evening just putting on something like a cheeseboard....

Again those that have eaten earlier wont want much and those who arrive at the evening part only will see there is something provided.

Ive done cheeseboards at weddings several ways and I woul guess that you could feed 120 quite cheaply.

A couple of years ago I did a cheese wedding cake as a gift to some friends...a 5 tier cheese stack cost around £120 and we added some bread sticks and tomatoes,grapes,celery,crackers and chutneys just to finish it all off....there was plenty of cheese to go round and what wasnt eaten was easily distributed around the family to take home!

Something like that might be an option for the evening and it wont clash with things at the hog roast/bbq....

if its something that you want to do...speak to your venue and explain its a "wedding cake" and that way you will probably find the are happy for you to supply it rather than them...although you may find that they could charge you a small per person fee for the use of their facilities.

koneko

Cheeseboard sounds like a great idea, and not something I'd thought of. This would lead on nicely from the bbq/hog roast and give the evening guests something to munch on.

I'm not sure we'll get away with it being a cake as we're having a normal cake, but I can but try - our venue profess to being flexible so we'll see how far that goes.

We have been debating doing our own sweetie bar as well, so this should deal with any sweet tooth cravings.

nuatha

koneko wrote: »

Cheeseboard sounds like a great idea, and not something I'd thought of. This would lead on nicely from the bbq/hog roast and give the evening guests something to munch on.

I'm not sure we'll get away with it being a cake as we're having a normal cake, but I can but try - our venue profess to being flexible so we'll see how far that goes.

We have been debating doing our own sweetie bar as well, so this should deal with any sweet tooth cravings.

You could describe it as the Groom's Cake
A cheeseboard as described by LEJC and sweet buffet should take care of all your evening food.

[Deleted User]

Why not explain your needs to your (possible) venue?

Perhaps if you talk to them about being on a strict budget they might be able to make some amendments to your menu and budgets? Maybe they could just supply sandwiches/rolls & salad in the evening & then if you add in a 'Groom's Cake' of cheese & grapes and your own sweetie buffet that would bring down the cost substantially.

Always question the flexibility of a venue in other matters if they cannot assist you with the vexed question of food budgets!

koneko wrote: »

The main reason is that there isn't enough room for everyone at the wedding ceremony itself (smallish church), its also possible that the evening number may increase as H2B hasn't decided whether to invite more work friends or not (I'm not as I don't really socialise with them out of work) but the day number is pretty fixed as its only family and very close friends.

If I'm honest, in an ideal world, I'd prefer that the day guests were the only guests full stop with no extras later, but the evening guests are made up of people we are inviting to be polite (they invited us to theirs etc), people H2B's family have told us must have an invite and his work pals. I suppose this is why I'm not keen to spend thousands of pounds feeding them!

Another possible way around this is to invite your day guests to your (later afternoon) wedding, have photos & drinks etc, and have your evening 'do' kick off at around 6-6.30pm, serving food to all (your already present afternoon guests and now-arriving evening guests) at the same time, again only one meal, followed by your party, cake(s) and sweeties.

Just a couple of suggestions

koneko

Hi All, update after speaking the the wedding co-coordinator at both our shortlist venues, they will do a cheaper evening food option (cheese board/bacon and sausage baps etc) but not on a saturday as they have a minimum spend requirement

We have asked the church if they could possibly do the sunday instead (its a bank hol monday so most people don't have work the next day) and we're waiting to hear back from them at the moment.

It would be so much easier if we could do a week day but one of my bridesmaids is at Uni and a lot of our friends/relatives are teachers so it just isn't practical.