Cheap(er) reception food options ????

Party trays from publix or local supermarket? -- how many people are attending?

One of the caterers we looked at did wood-fired pizza in a mobile stone oven. For 75 people it was about 1000 with a 100 dollar travel fee.

Honestly if you had a favorite little deli/pizza place you could order stuff from there, too.

That's a tough one. To be cost effective I would do something like pasta and salad but i'm not too sure if that would be diabetic / gluten friendly. Try google.

I was also going to say party trays from the supermarket. Like sandwich trays and veggie trays. That's what I was going to do until I found a caterer that offers an hors d'oeuvres menu that isn't much more costly than the supermarket party trays. So we're going with that instead for our cake and punch reception/cocktail reception. Of course you'd have to see first if they supermarket can accommodate gluten free and what not.

Ok let me also say this, i have diabetics in my family and im not stressing about a menu to fit every persons dietary restrictions, when you hire someone to cater usually you have a balance menu that includes proteins, starches, veggies etc. If you arent hiring a caterer and arent serving a full meal let your guest know at least so the 'gluten free' people and others can know to plan to eat ahead of time.

im a vegetarian and i never expect people to make accommodations for me --i go to a wedding and i eat what i can eat from whats offered. end of story

I just got married this past Saturday. I posted an ad on Thumbtack.com to see what we could get with our small budget. We had 50 people at the wedding. We found a caterer that gave us 3 meat and cheese trays, 3 bread baskets, sunndried tomato penne, 2 antiplasto platter, spinach salad, infused water and sweet tea for $330. In addition we got inexpensive round cakes from the grocery store, wine and beer. We had more than enough of everything. The guests loved it and had a great time. We spent less than $500 for all of it.