Make Your Wedding Inexpensive

My wife once had a side business as a caterer. Many of the weddings that she did were for couples who wanted to make their wedding inexpensive. Since I got to help out with many of these weddings I got to learn a little bit about food options that would help save money on the cost of the reception.

Here are a few tips that can definitely help.

Rehearsal Dinner – Instead of having a typical rehearsal dinner, why not plan on an informal bar-b-queue for your group or even order pizza. That can be a laid back way to welcome visitors who have traveled from out of town to attend your wedding as well as keeping your wedding inexpensive.

Appetizers – You can still have fancy appetizers at your reception if you’re willing to put in a little work. The key here is to start way in advance (month’s) doing a little bit at a time. You can make small quantities of appetizers that can be frozen and if you make something each week, by the time of the wedding date you will have a nice variety available to your guests. I’m talking simple things like mini quiches, tea breads, baby crab cakes etc. I think you get the idea. The list of items that you can have is only limited by your imagination. You can also have your friends help out if you want some fresh appetizers like deviled eggs or spreads and dips when it’s close to the big day.

The main course – One way to make your wedding inexpensive is to have it at a none typical meal time, for example arranging things so that people will be eating around 3pm. This way you can get away with serving lighter snacks as opposed to an all out dinner. You can easily cut your food bill almost in half this way.

You can offer a variety of different salads and maybe a hot pasta dish or two. Also many foods such as roast beef, ham, cheeses for cold cut platters and lasagna are easy to prepare ahead of time in large quantities. You can also try making little “tea” sandwiches, with the crusts cut off and cut into shapes like triangles, circles or even diamonds. If everything is very nicely garnished you can keep your wedding inexpensive and keep your guests happy too.

Planning inexpensive meals for your wedding guests doesn’t have to be difficult if you use a little imagination. As long as the food is fresh, well prepared and well presented no one will care if it’s a buffet or a three course full-on wedding breakfast, so go ahead and make your wedding inexpensive with great food on the cheap!