Feeding the Masses from Sunday to Wednesday

How many are you feeding? How many meals are you feeding? and it's for 4 days?

Budgeting on an average cost - $30 pp / per day... But depends on where you are feeding them and how many total and whether or not at the same time... you can do it for much less.

View Quoted Comment It would be family and bridal party. I assume people would start rolling into town Sunday evening or Monday morning.

We are feeding people on the day of the wedding and the rehearsal dinner. I would not expect to pay for people's meals at events I wasn't hosting.

Something my friends and I have done when we’ve gone on vacations together, and of course this will ONLY work if you are local or have access to a kitchen, we’d make trays of food and reheat them as necessary. We’d do pasta, chicken, salads (regular, potato, macaroni), then everyone would bring meat or veggies they wanted grilled and we’d throw it all on the grill. Is that something you could do? If I’m going to a wedding out of my area and have to stay multiple days, I don’t expect the bride and groom to pay for all my food, so others may not be expecting that either.

I agree with others in that I wouldn't expect the bride and groom to pay for my meal outside of the wedding meal and the rehearsal dinner/welcome party if there is one. Unless you are hosting events throughout that time frame, I don't think you have to worry about it. Otherwise....pizza lol. Lots and lots of pizza.

I agree with pizza!
Or if you can do bbqs like for burgers and hot dogs that’s another way.

View Quoted Comment Thanks all. I wasn't sure what would be proper etiquette, considering I'm along these people to travel from all corners of the globe.

I agree with PPs that people shouldn’t expect you to feed them for their whole trip. I think wedding and rehearsal/welcome dinner is good, you could also throw in a day after brunch if it’s in your budget but that would honestly just be an extra if you wanted to. The weddings we’ve been invited to that required travel only had a hosted welcome dinner, reception, and farewell brunch, otherwise we were on our own.

What type of events are you having? Honestly unless it is cultural to feed and host them over several days, save your money and go Dutch. The only meal you are expected to pay for is whatever they are specifically invited to which is the generally the reception for the bulk of the guests and rehearsal dinner for the attendants. Everything beyond that is optional attendance so they cover their own.

No one would expect you to pay for all of their meals, with the exception of a rehearsal dinner and the wedding reception. I think it’s very sweet of you to think about it, but that’s just so much to do.

A welcome meal the night before the wedding is fine (and the wedding meal of course). Anything else is a bonus. If d Ed very one is staying at the same hotel you could have welcome bag sent to their room (water & a few healthy snacks are always appreciated). And if at the same hotel you could fund a resort credit they could use towards breakfast.

For our out of town guests (as well as family members and the wedding party), we paid for both a welcome dinner the night before our wedding and a farewell brunch the following morning after our wedding. We also ordered some pastries, fruit and sandwich platters and other snacks the day of for the bridal party while we were getting ready at the hotel. Besides these, the only other "meal" was the wedding reception itself. When guests travel a far distance for a wedding, they certainly don't expect every meal to be covered!

Oh, and as for suggestions on how to keep the cost down, for our welcome party/rehearsal dinner we ordered drop-off catering and set up the food ourselves, for getting ready the day of we had a family member pick up the food for the bridal party so there wouldn't be a delivery fee, and we negotiated with the hotel for a special rate for the farewell brunch, since we held it there and booked our entire hotel block. Other ways to keep costs down are pizza! (I just wouldn't recommend pizza the day of while getting ready). I once went to a rehearsal dinner with just pizza, salad, wine and beer and it worked out well