Cater Your Own Wedding and Save Money

Choosing to cater your own wedding can help control expenses for your wedding. However, you'll have to make some decisions first. Many of these ideas will also work for a shower or pre-nuptial party.

Where will you have the reception? And, what kind of kitchen facilities will they have? BBQ pits perhaps? Buffet or sitdown? What type of beverage service? And, finally, for how many people.

You'll need to "hire" a staff. Not necessarily an entirely paid staff - you might have some acquaintances who would be happy to help out. Notice that I didn't not indicate friends or family - those closest to you should be able to enjoy the wedding completely. However, neighbors or co-workers that normally would not be invited might be happy to help out. You do need someone very organized to be in charge.

Once you've decided whether it's sit down to buffet, you'll need to choose one person to be in charge of the entire food "process." This includes finalizing the menu details, organizing the purchase and storage of the foods and other items (cocktails napkins to dessert forks to ice and everything in between. That person will supervise the preparation of the food, delivery of the food to the reception area, the serving and lastly, the clean up. She (or he) will need another assistant to help "supervise" if it's a fairly large or complicated meal. Then you'll need people to set your tables up, decorate and set the food out and serve or help serve the food, replenish platters, and clean everything up once it's over. Consider a professional bartender if you're serving mixed drinks - that will save you money because he/she will pour liquor more judiciously than letting your guests make their own. Or, at least one or two people to make and serve the drinks. (Hint: a professional bartender will almost always place a "tip" jar nearby - I for one hate that at a private function so you might want to request he/she not do that.)