I'm not sure how to sum this up, so here it is:
My fiance and I are minimalistic and truly think of our wedding as an (albeit elaborate) party to celebrate our marriage; my negative-nagging extended family have a very traditional and expensive view of what a wedding "should be". So I'm struggling to find a compromise.
We've been compromising and cutting costs everywhere I can find, but now I'm stuck. Feeding our guests, and the related costs, may literally be the single most expensive thing we pay for. We've limited our guest list to under 50, and I've been surfing other forum threads to find a solution that works for us, but we keep going back and forth. We've thought of:
--a cake and punch reception: We're not sure how work the wedding into a non-meal time because our venue is a B&B, so we're limited by check in time. We also have a chunk of out of town guests driving 2.5 hours, and I'd want to eat after a road trip. I will also probably want to eat after the energy of the day
--limited ceremony: We could save on cocktail hour snackage by limiting our ceremony to friends and immediate family, and invite extended family to the reception. (A weak idea because the cocktail hour snacks won't be a large cost percentage.)
--limited reception: We could save on reception food costs by inviting everyone to the ceremony, but limiting the reception to friends and immediate family. We were already planning on having an informal "afterparty" with these people because they're who we truly want to celebrate with. This was my favorite option for a while, but our ceremony and reception are at the same location, and it'd be weird to kick people out for the next event.
--tea cocktail hour: We could save on cocktail hour snacks by only serving tea until the reception. Again, not a strong idea because the savings aren't huge.
--brinner: We love brinner, and we've read that serving breakfast food is cheaper...but what are the savings really?
--food truck: would a food truck really save that much?
--We've thought of shortening the total wedding time, but we seem to need the cocktail hour to do our photography since we don't like the idea of a first look.
--would hand-passed platters matter much?
--For a while, I had the brilliant idea to serve banh mi (nostalgic for me, one of our favorite foods, and oh so cheap) with fruit and another side, but I only trust the restaurants that are 2.5 hours away from the venue, and I worry a travel fee would negate the savings.
--don't like the idea of a potluck wedding. I don't like the stress of making and traveling with food for holidays, and don't want to put my guests through that. And while some families may find that intimate or charming, our families would just be bitter.
--We are already: (1) not having a bar and are limiting alcohol to byob or a signature cocktail because my family doesn't drink much. (2) doing a plain sheet cake
Sorry for the info overload, but it seems like when an OP sums up, he/she ends up explain multiple times throughout the thread. I'm really asking for everyone's two-cents to see if there's an option I haven't thought of, a perspective on one of these options that would make it work, or what others are doing.
