As my wedding planning goes full steam ahead I naturally have been thinking about food. We have been back and forth on when the ceremony and reception were going to take place… and that plays a big part in what kind of food we were going to serve– but most importantly we HAVE to stay in budget. Entertaining our guests is really important and we certainly don’t want to leave anybody hungry but we simply can’t afford a four course meal for 75 to 100 people. That left us with the need to be creative.

Napkin has very little to say about the details of the wedding. He basically wants to know where and when to show up and that’s okay. So it was especially surprising when he said he wanted the food responsibly sourced if at all possible. We are both long time vegetarian/vegans and that’s another dietary thing for us to think about… and it limits our Wilmington options.  I have contacted a few catering companies and discussed ” heavy hor d’oeuvres.” We simply (at this point) cannot find a catering company who will do food for less than fifteen dollars a person.

100 x 15.00 = 1, 500. That’s half of our budget.

So now we REALLY have to get creative. We can do a few different things. We can order less food and have our ceremony/reception later in the evening so that it’s not right in the middle of dinner hours? We can skimp on food and just make sure people know that the pickings will be slim? Or we can DIY it (even a little.)

I know that seems cringe-worthy. A lot of people have said, “Don’t do it! Don’t stress!” but I think I’d be more stressed knowing that 1,500 dollars was getting luke warm on the buffet table. Now I love the crock pot. My initial thought was having a crock pot themed food table where you help yourself to tamari almonds, tofu bruschetta, veggie meatballs, etc. I would have to enlist my inlaws, family and friends for help… but if they (YOU) are willing then it might be do-able! then perhaps we can get a few appetizers from the companies… DIY the rest and save a pretty penny. We might be a little limited, though… so I’m not sure. When I started thinking about doing my own catering I was little overwhelmed but my friend Laura sent me a link to this website where I read the following article:

The Cheap Bastardettes Guide to Self Catering Your Wedding

Perhaps it’s not impossible!

(Peruse that site. It’s awesome.)