Budget Wedding Menu Ideas When You Are The Caterer
Budget wedding menu ideas
when you are your own caterer.
You can save money by preparing and freezing
sides and desserts ahead of time.
Preparing for a wedding can be all-consuming and hectic,
so you’re probably wondering why we would suggest preparing your own food items
on top of everything else.
Here’s our take on it.
If you have been following our Free Wedding Planner list,
you’ll have time to add a few extra fun (and money-saving) items to that list.
Budget Wedding Menu Ideas
Sides and Desserts are usually the easiest choices for preparing yourself,
because they can be frozen and prepared in individual portions ahead of time.
All you need is freezer space.
(We’ve heard of people buying a small freezer just for a wedding,
because it ends up being cheaper than hiring everything done by a caterer.)
If you enjoy food prep you won’t mind preparing 200 small cups of fruit salad for your daughter’s or your own wedding.
But not everyone cooks as a hobby or has time for it.
So our solution is:
have a food prep party.
Gather all your ingredients
Invite a few friends and/or family,
Promise them goodies and a fun time
and they will come.
A little bribery is perfectly okay in this situation.
And besides, who doesn’t like being part of getting ready for a wedding!
How to have a food prep party:
We’ll use the recipe for Frozen Fruit Cups as an example for a food prep party.
(We plan provide the recipe in a Kitchen post soon. They are great to put in school or work lunches, too.)
What you need:
- Buy small plastic food containers and lids from a warehouse store such as Costco.
- Collect cookie sheets or buy disposable serving trays or cardboard flats to stack the portion cups for freezing and ease of serving.
- Buy the salad ingredients and goodies the day of the party.
- Organize the goodies for the fun time after the food prep.
- Organize an assembly line, assigning jobs to your people.
- Provide rubber gloves (and masks if required).
The actual prep time will likely be an hour or so. Preparing for the prep is the most work!
But if you use your planner book, include your items to purchase onto other shopping trips.
Or order online.
