Self catered venues/DIY wedding

This may be tricky since most venues require caterers to have insurance... Are you open to a park wedding? Also, church reception rooms may be more flexible. The Columbia Association in Howard county has a few different venues that may also be more relaxed about this.

You can look at banquet halls, and parks. Or if you have a relative with a big back yard. We were going that route, but my Fiance has a huge family and 80-100 people is just not happening in a back yard. So now our budget had to grow.

Try Elks lodges that's what were doing we have a friend that does amazing BBQ and wanted him to cater and my family and my self are doing all the cocktail hour food and such. We rented the back privillon the space is nice and the rent was cheap enough we rented it for ten hours to allow for extensive setting up trucking in trees etc. also try American legion halls, Germain halls etc.

Why not have a cake and punch reception and leave it at that? You can't afford to feed your guests. There isn't anything wrong with going another route entirely.

Try snow hill manor in laurel. Its not that far for you guests to travel (my bridal shower was in laurel and my mount washington/baltimore guests had no trouble getting there, they hopped on 95/295 and got there easily)

May weddings were 550 dollars to rent the manor AND the tent outside (WOW!) but in the summer it goes up to 1200, still not bad. You can bring your own food.

Check VRBO.com and VacationHomeRentals.com. They're residential rentals that typically have no restrictions on food service. Finding the right size yard that allows events is the tricky part, but it can be done! We had the same issue with food (in-laws won't eat what they didn't cook), so we needed a place where they could prepare without catering licensing issues.