diy Cocktail Hour - Advice needed!

Your best bet is to find another caterer. I doubt the one you're looking at now will work with you if you try to DIY any food or drinks at your wedding.

Find another caterer or plan on getting premade trays from the grocery store. Hire someone to replenish the food. It's not your family's job to work your wedding.

Some caterers and some venues do allow you to provide additional food. We're doing something similar with our caterer. You said you're having a casual reception so it wouldn't seem out of place to have self-serve appetizers. Do you have an aunt or friend outside the bridal party who can put out some trays of food? People can help themselves, and when the food is gone, your aunt can remove the trays. This isn't overly demanding.
You can purchase basic appetizer trays at Sam's Club or somewhere similar, or if you want something a little fancier, make caprese skewers or antipasto skewers that you can make ahead of time and refrigerate, that dont need to be heated up.

Our caterer just required us to sign a release stating that if the food we provided ourselves were to cause an issue, the caterer is released from liability.

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Not trying to be snarky (I know tone on the Internet can be hard) but, I'm genuinely curious how the caterer (or anyone) would be able to determine what caused the issue. I'd be wary because if something does go wrong I think they will claim zero liability and blame the cocktail hour food.

OP, I would recommend finding a different caterer or finding a separate caterer for just the cocktail hour. Maybe you could get a food truck to come out just for the cocktail hour or something.

View Quoted Comment This makes no sense. Medical professionals can’t determine what food caused the issue if it’s all eaten in the same few hours. Unless someone has a specific allergy, there would be no way to release the caterer from liability.

View Quoted Comment If he's making you sign this, I would forgo the cocktail hour or find a caterer who will do a cocktail hour for you.

We are still in the very beginning stages of planning and we don't even have a caterer booked yet. Just one that we are eyeing up. It is certainly a question I am planning on asking whomever we do hire about the liability and if they would allow it. But seeing as we are likely going with a drop-off catering option, I'm not too concerned. I'm moreso looking for suggestions on what to serve and other miscellaneous suggestions *assuming* our reception caterer doesn't mind us doing our own cocktail hour since it is not something they offer.
Thanks!

I had an issue with this when I was first looking into BBQ as an option. I ended up going with a full service caterer. The BBQ place outsourced their apps and it was triple the price of the catering company I went with.

View Quoted Comment They can’t determine the cause, that’s why they want you to release the liability. If they are the only food provider, it’s easier to identify but once you introduce others you can’t tell. This is pretty standard- restaurants do it too, for example if it’s a touritsy beach place where you can go fishing and then bring your fish in for them to cook, they will want a liability waiver.

if it’s casual, could you do something simple like buckets of self serve beer, wine, and sparkling water. Then have a table with self serve popcorn, trail mix, nuts, goldfish crackers, etc. you could even have cute little paper bags made for people to pour their treats into and eat from. You could have each of the different options in various glass containers. It would also be interactive, which is always good.

would your caterer do something simple like that to help you keep the costs down- then you don’t have to worry about hiring another vendor or coordinating it yourself?

If you're having an barn style casual wedding I would say maybe bring in a couple kegs, and then get some glass dispensers (they sell all sizes at places like tjmaxx and homegoods) and do a few specialty cocktails with creative names. Also for food maybe just have a couple different food stations with things you can prepare ahead of time like meatballs /kielbasa/ little franks and get lots of toothpicks! Very outdoorsy and delicious!

xoxo

Danielle

We're also doing a rustic semi-casual wedding with BBQ! Decided to get trays of cheese and crackers, veggies and dip, and fruit from Costco. We're just going to have a family member transfer it to nicer trays and call it a day. I agree with others about that contract sounding a bit sketchy...

As others have said just get some pre-made platters and make sure they are kept at a proper temperature. I'm sure someone in your family won't mind doing you a favor. It really should n't be that much of a hassle if you keep it simple.