Self catered wedding if 80-100

Check out pintrest. They have a lot of great ideas!

Don’t. Self catering is unsafe and more stress that you don’t need on your wedding day. Judging by your post, you’re not an experienced caterer and that’s a huge liability. Italian is some of the cheapest catering available. I would price out different caterers/restaurants.

View Quoted Comment I am not the one making the food. I respect your opinion on self-catering, but I asked for advice on people who have self-catering their wedding or an event , not whether I should or should not. I completly am aware of the general wedding world's opinion on self-catering. And this is me not trying to be rude at all.

Have any of your friends or family cooked for large events like this before?

View Quoted Comment Yes they have

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It's great they have the experience! I'm on the side of do BBQ or a cheap $10 pp catering, not DIY, but if you are set on it then I hope it works out! I'd just make sure you have a large clean kitchen to cook in, full fridges to store everything in, some safe way of transporting everything at food-safe temperature, and a safe way of reheating.

I would recommend items that you can make in advance and just throw in the oven. Lasagna would be easy, pizzas, pastas with pre cooked noodles etc that just need baked. We are doing artichoke dip as an appetizer and it is something we are making in advance, (keeping in the fridge) and then throwing in the oven for 25 minutes. This all depends on the size of the kitchen you are using and if there are double ovens. We are also going to make the salad, and more appetizers. We decided to do a self serve catered buffet from a local restaurant for dinner so it was less thing to think about.

We are self catering too to save TONS of money. We are doing chicken over a fire. Like the chicken quarters. Baked beans, mac and cheese, potato salad, and cole slaw. For appetizers we are having a meat and cheese platter, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches with the dill on top, fruit and veggie trays. If they are close friends and family I def think self catering is a really good option!

View Quoted Comment Since they’re experienced with catering for large groups can’t they just answer your questions for you?

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If You are going to self cater then Steph's menu is that way to go. Or even Lasagna with salad and bread. But any other pasta wouldn't be a good idea. Maybe a food truck or even Olive Garden. But If they don't remember anything else they will definitely remember the food!

So let's say you make lasagnas in advance for 100 people. Or maybe lasagna for 90, and some other dish that would work for ~10 gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, and vegan guests. How many 9x13 pans of lasagna would it take to feed 90 people? Google tells me that a 9x13 pan of lasagna typically serves 8 medium-size portions, so you would need at least 12 pans of lasagna plus your magical other main dish for people with dietary restrictions. How are you going to reheat 12 pans of lasagna so that your guests can be served at the same time? How many ovens will you have available, and how many lasagnas do you think you can fit into an oven at a time? Who's doing all the lasagna cutting and plating and serving? What are you serving with the lasagna? What are the logistics of that?

My husband's grandmother did all of our food except the cake. It turned out great. We did a BBQ theme though. Pasta dishes are a great option though because they are usually easy to make in bulk and hold quite well.

My best suggestions would be keep it simple and don't get too many people involved. Pick 2-3 dishes and 2-3 people to do the cooking and make it very clear who is responsible for each dish. Lasagna, baked ziti, and manacotti are good options

An oven can hold 4, 9x13 pans. Lasagna holds heat very well. other pasta dishes like pasta Alfredo with chicken and broccoli, and maybe a meatless option with tomato sauce like cheese tortellini, can all be done on stove top but will require sternos to keep warm. Lasagna, cook the chicken, make the tomato sauce the day before. Alfredo sauce I recommend jar. Cheese tortellini can come dry in a box in the pasta section or frozen in the Italian section. The tortellini and the noodles for Alfredo will have to be done day of.

I would premake 4 lasagnas the night before and all the sauce for 4 more. Then the next day while you are heating those, assemble the other 4 lasagnas so they are ready to go when the others come out. It takes over an hour to heat up a cold lasagna. This is all assuming you are working with one stove.

I was no thinking of doing a lasagna. I was thinking an baked alfredo and a baked ziti . A lasgna is a lot of assembling of ingredients and I want to make this as easy as i possibly on my family member. For those of you who had a family memeber or friend do the food di they run into any issues?

If you don't mind me asking what's the budget for the food? I'm asking because although pasta is fairly inexpensive by the time you buy all the food, pans, burners, foil, cups, plates napkins forks spoons and drinks you could probably find an affordable caterer or have a restaurant cater. And the best part is your family can enjoy the wedding and not have to worry about cooking/setting up stressing etc. You would be surprised what you can find if you look hard enough or if you just ask

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You're missing my point. I'm trying to point out the amount of food we're talking about and the logistical issues of trying to cook/reheat them at the same time. If you're doing baked dishes you're going to run into the same issue - you can only put so many pans in an oven at a time, so unless you have a bunch of ovens you're going to run into a timing/heating problem. You can't cook 4 pans of food and serve 1/3 of your guests while the other 2/3 wait for their food to cook or heat through. Cooking for and serving 80-100 people is not like twice the work of cooking for and serving 8-10 people; it's an order of magnitude harder, including with safety issues. Does your family member have significant catering and/or food service experience?

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I think self catering is a great idea if she has someone that will do it for her. They might have the facilities in their home or workplace. No need to patronize

View Quoted Comment Nobody is patronizing. We're pointing out legitimate issues that people who do not cook or serve large numbers regularly often don't think or know about.

RE "They might have the facilities in their home or workplace" - unless the wedding is in their home or workplace, that's not going to help much with the logistics of reheating and serving baked pasta dishes.

I'm also thinking of family catering! A wedding I went to last year had a taco bar and the hot items were kept in warmers! Maybe some community places or churches have them, but I'm thinking of renting a few from a local church. Good luck!! 🙂