A friend is having a backyard wedding . She and her intended don’t have a lot of disposable income and definitely don’t want to start married life with a big catering bill. Premade platters or the like from grocery stores or local food establishments are an idea but I don’t have a lead on who makes good ones that aren’t crazy expensive. We aren’t opposed to fixing platters ourselves but do t want to do a lot of real cooking on the day of the wedding. There are too many other things that need to be taken care of on the day and we want to keep things low stress for the happy couple. Thanks in advance everyone!
Edit: the wedding will be in February and outside. I’m thinking hot chocolate bar and?
Need frugal suggestions for apps and snacks for 60 people. Houston Texas.
byu/Fragrant_Silver_3320 inFrugal
Posted by Fragrant_Silver_3320
16 Comments
Look into a food truck
Do you have a Costco membership? A friend and I catered a large party for just a few dollars per person through Costco. We got giant party platters with sandwiches, veggie trays, and desserts.
The Chickfila party platter is a great value, and it’s a crowd pleaser
How about having a potluck wedding? People can bring their favorite dish to share. I would love to be at a potluck wedding!
People tend to like the frozen mini bite-sized quiches. They make florentine and then the ham or bacon and cheese ones.
Appropriately time, there is no need to have a meal. A festive drink, coffee, tea and wedding cake. you choose to rent a few dishes and have something really lovely.
Make your own Mexican food in advance. Find ground meats or chicken on sale. Cook it up ahead of time with Mex seasoning. Put in zip lock bags and freeze. ( brownie points for smashing the zip bag full of meat in a large disposable aluminum pan before freezing so the frozen meat fits back in the pan perfectly for reheating). Do the same with home made beans. Rice can be made a day or two in advance. Put in disposable aluminum pan, add a shot or two of water before reheating. Tortillas will go in pan the day before for heating. Condiments can be chopped a day ahead. I bet you can make this for under a hundred fifty bucks.
Whole Foods actually has a well priced catering dept & bakery with high quality. Not usually the first place I think of with the word frugal, but I was pleasantly surprised
Make the party platters. They are easy to throw together.
Bags of celery and carrots, a few other veggies, some ranch and you have easy chopping/assembly you can delegate to the first person who says, “how can I help?”
Blocks of cheese and slices of deli meat can be cut into squares the day before and assembled on site.
Platters themselves can be thrifted.
Hit Costco for some heated items. They have tons of options in their freezers, deli, and refrigerated sections.
Cold apps that can be prepped ahead of time- with a theme
Tex-mex- taquito bites, cowboy caviar, guac, salsa, queso ( put it on a sterno), chips, mini-quesadillas, esquites pasta salad, cut fruit with tajin, bell pepper poppers ( stuffed with cream cheese,cheese,bacon)
Brunch-y- deviled eggs, candied bacon, mini-quiche, mini pancakes, mini muffins, fruit salad
Charcuterie is fairly expensive as each component is fairly costly. Even something like sliders will be a similar flavor profile but more affordable and easier to scale up .
Do a potluck! Assign a category to each guest (a veggie, a dessert, etc.) and have everyone bring! What fun that would be! I’m not sure how this nation got away from doing weddings like that, but I’m sure sad we did.
Make it a pot luck.
We need a budget. Just saying “not too expensive” when you haven’t even listed how many guests is not super helpful.
I once had to cater a Christmas party for 50 people on about $600. We used Sam’s Club and went over the budget by maybe $50ish. There was still food leftover. A bulk store is the route I’d go, Costco has a ton of good options too.
Things on toothpicks. buy some fancy toothpicks (cocktail picks) from Temu. Grape on a cube of cheese. Folded salami and an olive, mini sandwiches, like pimento cheese cut into wedges, (look up tea sandwiches) other d’oeuvres. like mini quiches, stuffed mushrooms, little sticks of fruit.
Overall a ***Tea Wedding*** “Martha Stewart” is nice, it’s not a regular meal, normally early afternoon around 2pm, (so not lunch/dinner time) you have sandwiches, appetizers, tea and coffee, maybe a champagne punch, and regular punch, and some desserts. (single serve like cookies, cupcakes, brownies ect) and wedding cake.
Best part much of this can be made days in advance stored in Tupperware for day of. some even frozen.
Frozen meatballs and a couple of crockpots. Wedding food is overrated and too expensive.
Hell, get a Taco Bar from your local place, I’d eat that over whatever meal is being offered.
Taco/nacho/burrito bar. I had to feed roughly the same amount of people and made a big taco bar. It was a hit and it was super cheap to do.