Food on a very tight budget

It depends on time of day and what you have in mind. If you do an early afternoon or brunch-ish situation, I think you definitely can make it happen. But it also depends on how many guests you have. You can probably get creative and figure it out, but if not there’s also other areas that you can cut costs if you need some more room in the catering budget.

That seems low, even for a casual wedding, unless it is a very small wedding. How many guests will you have? Are you trying to serve a full meal? Are you providing alcohol or just food? Unless you have a low number of guests, you might be better off aiming for a non-meal time such as mid-afternoon, and providing appetizers and dessert rather than a full meal.

I don’t think so but it depends on your guest count and what you serve

Depends on what you are getting catered and for how many people.

My friend from grad school got married on a Saturday morning and did a brunch reception. It was no more than 35 people and she said she spent under $500 for food, coffee/tea bar, and alcohol.

A small one. We just used an upscale BBQ place to cater a work party for 42 people and it cost $750ish total. 2 different meats (1/3 pound per person), granny apple coleslaw, baked beans, some other side I can’t remember, and slider buns. We also got a salad from another restaurant for $86.

It’s for a close friends daughter. I promised her mother before she passed away I’d help her but she insists she only 600.00 for the food. She is getting married at 2pm and wants a buffet menu with 150 guests I think this is crazy. Some family will be making food all we need is meat, potatoes and vegetables plus all disposable tableware.

Literally the only way I can think to feed 150 people with $600 is with some grocery store fried chicken and Costco sandwich platters. She can’t even take that many people to McDonald’s for $600 unless they’re all ordering on the dollar menu

Our caterer is what I would consider very inexpensive - It'll still be about $2600 (including gratuity, not including alcohol) for 130 people.

I keep telling her she needs at least 1000.00 and then it’s still sparse

You do realize that’s $4/person right?

No, that amount with that number of people is not possible.

Even an appetizer and dessert bar or a breakfast buffet would be more than that. Guest count needs to be cut to more like 50. Very unrealistic. Wish I had better news.

Wedding cake for 100 people is going to cost us $400, and we did major comparison shopping. As someone said, $4.00 per person isn't really going to work to buy a meal -- unless it's spaghetti, I don't think I can make dinner for my family for $4 pp. She either needs to cut her guest list or switch to a "cake & punch" reception, which works okay at 2 pm. (But, the cake might have to be sheet cake from Costco to stay under her budget. [Nothing wrong with that, I love Costco cake, but she's going to have a hard time finding a tiered wedding cake for 150 for $600.]) Good luck!

View Quoted Comment No way will $600 be enough for 150 people. That's $4 a person. The cheapest I've seen per person is $10-$12 a person, unless you have a chain restaurant like Chipotle or Subway cater, and you'll still be looking at $8-$10 a person then.

That's very little for that many people. You might come close with a restaurant doing drop off catering. But still for that many people, it would be tough.

It's only going to cost us about 14 dollars per person for bbq so for somewhere about 140 people once you add tax and delivery fees and all that it will be over 2,000. That's not including cake, alcohol or appetizers.

The bride's expectations are completely unrealistic. She either needs to up the budget by a few multiples or drastically cut the guest list.

I don't think it's possible for that many people.

The only thing I can see you doing like a subs from Wal-Mart or Sam's, meat and cheese trays, fruit and veggie trays, potato salad and chicken salad and maybe some fried chicken. Sheet cake or cupcakes. Few big bottles of wine some cheap pop and a keg of possible. It definetly won't be a full meal and because it is early you can get away with this. This is the most I can think