Make your own food?

Unless it is in your own backyard, you will run into roadblocks with venues requiring a licensed caterer. That includes having your favorite local restaurant provide drop off catering. In addition to the food safety hazards with their own liability issues, you and your family will not have to interact with guests and enjoy the wedding as they should if they are working. There are valid reasons why this is strongly discouraged.

View Quoted Comment We are having a small, non-traditional wedding held at a national park with overnight guests for three nights at a private villa, not a venue. No licensing considerations for us.

View Quoted Comment I’m also 1000% sure our close friends would never cause us liability issues….

The thing to keep in mind is that cooking for 38 people is time consuming. I host family holidays for 20-25 people and we usually serve food around 1pm and I start prepping/cooking food at 6am. Expect that whoever is cooking is going to be spending most of the day doing that instead of enjoying the time/relaxing with you and your future spouse.

I think it is a good plan and you can easily cater 38 in house and serve fish and a vegetarian option. However, I would recommend hiring 1-2 servers and 1 licensed bartender. Just so guests still get that feeling of being served and not having to clean up tables after dinner and dessert. We are planning our rehearsal dinner at my future in-laws and it will be a full on cocktail hour, dinner, dessert for about 60. We are ordering all the food and buying alcohol, but we are hiring 4 servers and 2 bartenders - one to man the bar area and one to walk around with drinks. It just frees up his parents so that they can enjoy themselves a bit more. We are paying our servers $70/hour and our bartenders $80/hour and we will tip them all at the end of the night. I'm sure if you throw it out on Facebook or next-door or even your favorite waitress/waiter, you could easily find a couple who will be able to help manage for a few hours.

Yes, luckily our venue allows us to to bring in our own food or hire a caterer. We’re doing bbq chicken type sandwiches on rolls and lots of side dishes. Instead of a huge cake, just 1 layer for us and the rest fake. Instead serving other desserts such as cookies, bars, etc

I'm really thinking about it really we are we have a lot ppl that have different food hiccups so it will buffet style chicken fish option rice veggies salads and different options of desserts besides our wedding cake, alcoholic drinks and non alcoholic beverages

View Quoted Comment Yes I agree Michelle!

View Quoted Comment That's a great idea Tiffany!

We are! We will have about 20 people, and will just have as much as possible prepared ahead of time, and the meats will be grilled during "cocktail hour"!

I feel like when we are all posting on this forum that everyone us assuming everyone's wedding is a huge put together event at a venue planned by a coordinator, and that's just not the case.


Honestly I love the idea and that seems more personal and enjoyable to me. I'd go for it and ignore liscensed anything. Close friends and family won't cause an issue and can serve themselves and enjoy the smaller quieter reception without issues.

One option to consider is if there are some family style options or party platters that you could pick up from a local restaurant or grocery store, either as the main meal or to supplement some of your offerings. That means you and your family don't have to be responsible for preparing everything and can have a bit more time to relax with your guests.

We are doing bbq brisket and chicken for our wedding with about 100 guests. To save money we are only having the meats brought it by a company and we are making all the sides.

While I love the idea in theory, there are practical things to consider. On paper 38 guests sounds like a small guest count. But it can become quickly overwhelming if you have to make food for that many people. AND, do you want people to sit down and eat around the same time? Keeping food warm and tasty may also be a challenge. Just something to consider. There are inexpensive catering options if you want a casual event. Mission BBQ for example. But also look into local catering before you (or your dad) takes on this project. And maybe you can make some things and cater some things.

There little bit of things that we really want so our family and friends will do some dishes for us and then my God son is supposed to be doing the rest. Try to cut cost down

Luckily our venue allows outside catering or handle your own. They have many family reunions at their ranch so we decided to make/serve our own. First we were going to grill but instead of manning the bbq, we’ll bring it in and have ready. Easy small sandwiches and lots of salad choices! We get the venue all day long so it helps with food timing.

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This! I've seen so many nightmare scenarios with this.

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Just a thought, does your venue know you're self-catering? How are you planning to keep the food at food-safe temperatures? Are you having a lot of people?

Sometimes people come on here hoping for advice on self catering for 100+ people.

View Quoted Comment We have a commercial kitchen. On site with plenty of refrigerators and warming stations. If everyone we have invited comes it’s just shy of 100 kids included.

If you and your dad are willing to take on the work, this sounds really nice. Like others have said though, it's quite a bit of work on a day where you want to be relaxed.