Bride on a Budget

Food for a wedding is crucial. Although the special day is about the bride and groom, your guests expect to be fed. If there is not a good option for food, it might leave guests feeling down and less likely to have a good time because they are hungry or cranky. However, planning for food isn’t easy. Undoubtably, there are questions on whether or not you will have good choices that everyone will enjoy, if you will have food for the picky eaters or the guests with dietary restrictions or allergies. There’s the question of, “Do we want to order food and have it catered or delivered?” or “Do we want to make our food?” There’s also the question of, “How do we display the food or keep it warm?” And two of the most important questions, “How much food should we plan for?” and “How much does it cost?”

There’s a lot to consider when deciding if you want to make your own food for your wedding, including figuring out what kinds of food you want. Even if you LOVE cooking and baking… even if you cook or bake for a LIVING… it can still be overwhelming and a lot to think about, plan, and coordinate.

Our wedding food story began when we decided right off the bat that we wanted to get our food catered from one of our favorite restaurants. It was an easy choice for both of us because it has food that both of us love, and there are plenty of other options for all of our guests! Plus, my fiancé and I ate at this restaurant when we closed on our first house together! We ate there with family to celebrate my fiancé’s retirement from the military! This restaurant has always been our go-to for celebrations (and just on normal days when we want some good comfort food), so the idea of having them cater our wedding made sense to us! Why not have a restaurant that we have so many special memories of cater our wedding, too? Well… it made sense to us until we looked at the cost.

We began looking at the catering menu and picking out the foods that we wanted. But the numbers just kept adding up when we picked our dishes and did the math based on how much we would need to order to serve our guests. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach because we were really set on having this food for our wedding… but realistically, we just couldn’t do it anymore. Not with those prices. So, we looked at the food that we wanted.

Trays of mashed potatoes.

Trays of ziti.

Trays of vegetables.

The list went on.

And the lightbulbs in our brains did, too.

While we agreed that making our own food would not be the same as ordering from our favorite restaurant, we knew that we could save money on the foods that were easy enough to make and serve in bulk.

We can make foods easily enough, like pasta and potatoes and vegetables and salad! All for a quarter of the cost of catering!

I love cooking, and I cook almost every night. I also enjoy saving money. It will be a lot of stress and a lot of work, but at least I can rest easy knowing I didn’t spend $100 on a tray of ziti when I can make it for less than $10.

I also considered getting baked goods pre-made from the grocery store! But, I decided against that, as well.

Baking just happens to be one of my hobbies, and I love cake decorating. Instead of ordering a cake to be made, why not make it myself? It might not be perfect to someone looking for a professional, but it will be perfect to us and it will be special and personal because I know that I made it and put a lot of love into it. Same goes for our other desserts.

My family and I are bakers. We bake huge arrays of desserts for EVERY holiday. Originally I thought of ordering baked goods because I wanted to save time, but then I looked at the overall costs… and I realized, why not bake everything? This is who I am and this is what my family does. We bake and we cook. While sitting back and not having to cook or bake for just one day might sound nice, I have literally trained my entire life for this, so why am I going to sit on the bench on the big day?

On my special wedding day, baking and cooking everything just makes sense to us. It won’t be everyone’s choice, especially if these aren’t things you like to do or if you don’t have the means to do so. But it is ours. And I love it, and I can’t wait!

That being said, there are different types of ways to serve a meal! We are opting for a buffet style dinner over a family style meal! If you are making your own food, buffet style is a great option because it will allow you to have a variety of different foods for everyone, and you worry less about the amounts made because there will be so much that if one thing gets gobbled up, there will be plenty more foods for everyone to try.

Of course, making your own food is out of the question for some people. If you do not cook or cannot cook, ordering food from a vendor is going to be your best bet, hands down. If you are having a wedding at a destination that is far from home or doesn’t have a kitchen you can use, you would want to order out. If you don’t want the stress of planning to cook or cooking itself, order your food. If you don’t have the time, proper storage, or means to cook, definitely order from a catering company. Cooking your own wedding food is not going to work in every scenario. But, for me, it’s perfect and it makes sense! I will also have help from my family, so having support in this endeavor is really important!

One of my biggest worries about making my own food for the wedding is that everything will have to be made in the few days leading up to the wedding. I have already decided I will take this time off from work so that I will have the proper time. But the space is what I worry about, too. We will have to have enough fridge and freezer space for all the foods that we are preparing. Additionally, we will need to make sure we are able to rotate all the food trays in our oven. We have already decided that a second fridge might help us (and would be good to have, even outside of the wedding), and we are making sure that we have a plan for how we are going to heat up all the food and keep it warm.

Although we are going to be making the majority of our food, you can opt to make half of it and order half of it! For us, we are making a compromise! We decided that, while we were going to do all the cooking and baking, there were two things we REALLY wanted for our wedding from the restaurant we were originally thinking of going with. While we are going to be cooking everything else, our wedding would not be complete without those two things. While it will cost us a little bit of money, these are not food items we could make on our own, so we will be ordering them to serve alongside our home cooked meal!

When I wrote down my rough budget for making all of our food versus getting the same amount of food from a caterer (which was only dinner foods and did not take into consideration dessert or cocktail), we are already saving over $800. In the end, we will be saving even more if you include the desserts and cocktail hour. I definitely feel confident and excited for what we are about to create!

If cooking your own food for your wedding is the choice that you make, I wish you all the luck! It’s not easy, but for the sake of saving money and putting a personal and special touch on things, we got this!

Our wedding will have all the flavors of home!

~Sincerely and best wishes,

A Bride on a Budget