DIY Brides: buffet tips

I'm not sure I've seen that many brides on here doing their own food. I think there are a few, so hopefully they will have some ideas from their experiences.

Will you have other family members helping you? Personally, I think this would require great planning and delegating. Every bride on here says how busy/fast the wedding day went by, and if you're cooking, that's just one more thing to take you away from experiencing your day.

Can you give us an idea of your overall plan for the cooking and serving of the food? Is this all a backyard style thing, where the food will be cooked at the house and brought to the buffett? Or will you have to prepare food ahead of time to bring to your venue?

I am not catering either. We are having a bbq reception and the plan (as of now) is to buy 3 already smoked briskets and make the sides. I am taking off the day before the wedding so hopefully I will have time to make the potato salad, pasta salad, fruit tray, etc. Of course I will enlist as much help as possible and make the desserts (having a dessert bar and small cake) ahead of time and freezing.

This should help with costs...at least I hope!

Good Luck!!

For the ladies making their own food...how many guests are you having?

I LOVE to cook and while I'm not going to make any plans to make all of the food, I had thought it might be a neat idea to make something special for the guests--especially since everyone invited knows how much I love cooking.

I'm a great planner so I've got that going for me. ....aaaannnnd that's about it. hahaha

I don't anticipate having much family that will be willing to help out.

An abbreviated version of what I've thought of doing is: making ahead & freezing most things that won't need to be fresh, renting chafing dishes & having someone on the wedding day who is in charge of food (preping, putting it all out & replenishing the dishes)

As of right now: that plan doesn't work for me AT ALL.... so I' going to have to work on this a lot. A. LOT. That's where I figured you gals could give me some ideas!

I'm lucky that I don't have to work (well, I'm a homemaker so that IS work) and I don't have any children so I'll have the weeks and days prior to the wedding to do a lot of work. That's why I thought I'd be able to do it myself.

We're having about 200 people soooo I really don't know how this is going to work. Give up & concede to hiring a catering company?

With 200 people, treat yourself and hire a caterer. Trust me, it will be worth every dime. On your day of, the only thing you should have to worry about is saying, "I Do." If you would like to make a signature dish to add to your buffet, that would be awesome. Otherwise, hire a pro. If it were 50 people, I would say go for it, but 200 is a serious ouch.

Those of you cooking, I must say, you're very brave to take that on. No way would I want to have to worry about the food along with everything else. Good luck!

I don't necessarily WANT to worry about it but hiring a catering company is SOO expensive & unless we find a way to add to the budget- it's not happening. So, I think it's just going to be something that I have to find a way to do. IDK- how much are you ladies spending on a caterer for buffet style?

I'd love if you could share any pricing information, actually- prices for buffet style & for sit down. Will you share WW ladies?

People are going to say I'm crazy, but we're doing our own food and have 300 people invited. That being said, we have numerous people pitching in. My aunt works at Farmland and is getting us the bacon-wrapped fillets at an incredibly cheap price. Two of my uncles and my Dad's cousin are going to be taking care of the meat. My Dad figured out a great recipe to help slow cook them part of the way. He's also looking into getting an industrial-sized grill. This is not needed, but it's something he really wants for himself and my wedding might be his excuse to get that bad boy. We are doing a Cesar salad. We'll be buying the romaine in bulk and prepping most of the way the day before (everything except for the dressing which will be mixed in the day of). We are either doing garlic smashed potatoes or sweet potatoes. This will be the biggest headache-getting them all boiled, mashed and mixed. We're also looking to do another veggie which will most likely be grilled zucchini and bread. (cont)

Jodi W: are you having an outside reception?

Mrs. Carole M: I hope that I can figure away to make the day stress free. I HOPE! Cate's lucky to have you!!

We're expecting a number of those people will be unable to attend due to two graduations the same evening. Even so, I know it's a ton to take on! There's no way we could do it without a lot of family helping. My step-mom's family will be helping with setup. My aunts will be overseeing. My cousin's wife and other aunts will be helping later on with cleanup. It is a huge undertaking and involves a lot of research on what can be done when and how much of this and that you'll need. I know that there's probably not another bride on here that will say go for it. Even I say it is a big decision.

We're having about 150 and we're doing our own food. Make sure you have a venue that you can prepare food in. We have our house and we're renting a refrigerated trailer to accomodate all the extra food.

Choose simple but yummy foods. We're having one hot item (stuffed pasta shells with marinara sauce) and then about 4 different salads.

Try and choose something that you can make and freeze beforehand. We're going to completely prepare the shells a couple weeks before and freeze them. That way on the day of, all we have to do is stick them in the oven to thaw and reheat. And we're doing trials before hand! Just to make sure we have the system down and there are no surprises.

Salads, you can usually at least begin to prepare a day or two before, even if you don't fully put them together.

We are having a lot of people staying at our house so they are all expected to pitch in!

We're also spending about $300 to hire a few people who can help the day of to prepare food and continued...

Bus tables later in the evening.

Food (probably most from costco) - $1000

Hired people - $300

Refrigerated trailer - $100

Total: $1400

That's less than half the price of what a cheap caterer would have cost us.

We did all the food for my sisters wedding of about 60, so this is just a larger scale and this time around we're simplifying it and learned a lot from before!

Our venue also has a large kitchen with three refrigerators, stoves, and a pass-through window. I don't think we'll be using the window, but it will help with restocking.

Thank you so much Alina & Kacee!! So, it CAN be done! One thing the two of you have going for you that I'm lacking is family willing to help out! That might just be my downfall.

I'll be revisiting this topic a LOT, I think... I definitely need to work out some logistics on paper and do some hard thinking.

You will get a lot of people on here saying don't do it and save for a caterer, but if you plan well and are organized and have lots of people helping out, then it's doable! And worth it IMO.

Just make sure that on the day of, you and your mom aren't stressing about the food! Leave it in the hands of those that are taking care of it.

I just googled wedding caterer VA.

Here's a sample menu I found:

Hot Entrée Buffet

Chicken Marsala

Sautéed breast of Chicken with Mushrooms and Herbs in a light Marsala Wine Sauce

Offered on a bed of Herbed Orzo

~

Baby Spinach Salad

Red & Yellow Peppers, Boursin cheese with a Sesame-Poppy vinaigrette

~

Assorted Rolls & Butter

~

Gourmet Cookies

$10.95 per person plus tax and delivery

So that would be a little over $2,000. It's the same cost per person as $1,400 for 150 guests, and the hassle you're saving yourself is huge.

Did you get any quotes?

Also, having other people help on the day of means somebody has to work at your wedding. Would you like to go to a wedding and work the whole time?

You should really look into hiring a few people that can help. Especially if you have it mostly planned and prepared, then you can just hire people to execute it the day of.

Mrs. S, thanks for the research & I definitely see your point in it being similarly priced. Something to think about, for sure!!

Alina: I was definitely thinking about hiring some people to take care of things the day of. I have a friend who has a daughter who is 20ish & in culinary school- I was hoping to swipe her & a few of her friends up to help for the day and pay them. I did this once for a wedding of a friends friends friend when I was younger & her family basically prepared everything & had it ready in the venues kitchen and it was my job to keep everything stocked up & warm etc. It wasn't hard for me to do (by myself) because she had everything very organized. That's what I keep thinking of when I consider doing my own food vs. catering.

If I were preparing all of the food myself I'd probably cook some kind of Italian food i.e. lasagna or spaghetti. It's easier and cheaper to buy large quantities and also you can buy huge aluminum tins to prepare them in. I'd probably serve salad and italian bread to go with it. Also, meatballs could be done in advance. Red marinara sauce freezes nicely so it could be done in advance too. Could you put an add in your local paper to advertise a serving opportunity, maybe you could hire 3 or 4 people to serve and pitch in the day of the event....that would be so much cheaper than hiring a catering company. Good Luck! I hope it goes well for you :0)