DIY Wedding Catering

Doing your own wedding catering is by far the most cost-effective way to feed your guests. It’s certainly not a simple task, but with some careful planning and forethought, you can easily achieve success.

Before you start planning, here are some essentials that you should think about so that you create the perfect catered wedding.

Keep it simple

The best advice I could give anyone thinking about doing their own wedding catering is to keep your ideas simple. Be sure not to overstretch yourself. Consider your abilities and timescales - work within these.

Choose menus that can be prepared in advance, are simple to make and easy to store. If you use complicated recipes then you increase the difficulty and the possibility of the dishes not turning out right. Go simple and you’ll reduce your stress.

Choose dishes that can be served cold as cooking on the day will be a nightmare. You'll end up needing extra staff, facilities and money! It will also reduce the possibility of things going wrong at the last minute.

Spread the work

We all have relatives who are a dab hand in the kitchen. If you ask nicely I’m sure they’ll be willing to help you out with a couple of dishes and possibly the cost for those dishes too.

At one of my friend's weddings all the close friends of the bride bought something for the buffet table, whether sandwiches, sausages, cakes or crisps. It spread the cost, the work and stress but needed a just little co-ordination.

Hygiene should be a top priority

If you’re preparing your wedding food yourself, make sure you think carefully about health and hygiene.

It’s essential that this is a top priority as the last thing you need is a number of your guests getting food poisoning!

It happened to a friend of mine and I promise that you don’t want your wedding to be remembered for that!

Follow the basic principles of wash your hands, clear up as you go, prevent cross-contamination of foods, cook thoroughly and chill correctly. For more food hygiene information, visit the Food Standards Agency.

For summer weddings, having enough fridge space to keep all your foods cold is very important. You can hire fridges from catering supplies and plant hire shops. The rule of thumb here is have too much space, rather than too little. We had three small fridges (the ones that fit in kitchen units) and two large, upright fridges for 100 guests. We could have done with more to chill the booze too!

Don’t forget about crockery, cutlery and tablecloths

If you’re doing the wedding catering, don’t forget to think about how you’re going to eat it! You will need plates, knives, forks, spoons, glasses, serving dishes, serving spoons, ice buckets, tablecloths and napkins.

When I was investigating these items for my wedding, I found that it was more cost effective to hire these items from a catering supplier than to buy disposable plastic and paper versions – and it looked a lot better too.

The hire company also did the washing up for a small additional fee, so all you have to do is stack them in boxes. Hiring is more environmentally friendly too.

Get help to serve the drinks and food

On your wedding day, the last thing you want to think about serving the food or drinks, who’s going to clear the plates away or do the washing up. Make sure you get some reliable help to do these little jobs for you.

Depending on the numbers at your wedding, two to five helpers will go a long way. It will be money well spent to take the stress away.

To find little helpers, try your local pub as they’ll know of young girls that are reliable waitresses. You could use your sister’s or cousin’s friends or perhaps try the local catering college.

You’ll need one waitress per 20 guests as a minimum. On the run up to the wedding, show them the venue and explain clearly what you want them to do. On the day, make sure you brief them thoroughly again, both verbally and with a written list of things they need to do.

Plan carefully

When doing the wedding catering yourself, you will need to plan very carefully.

Make sure you think about all the following points:

• Your choice of menus and dishes
• Make a shopping list
• Timing of when you can make the dishes before the event
• How to store the dishes
• How long the dishes will store for
• How do you want to garnish the dishes
• When do you want the dishes to be served
• How do you want the food laid out or presented
• Timing of what happens when and what the waitresses will need to do

Your serving staff will need a timeline specifically for the catering and serving of drinks that corresponds to your reception timeline. You can give this to them during the briefing session.

Be as specific as possible with all of the points above, so you leave less room for errors. It will ensure a stress free day!

Don’t forget the small stuff

When doing your own wedding catering, it’s easy to forget the small things.

Items such as sugar, butter, salt and pepper, ashtrays, ice, ice buckets, bottle openers, banqueting roll, storage boxes, table water, jugs, serving dishes, serving spoons and condiments can easily get forgotten.

Think thoroughly about all the things that you need, speak to your mum, aunt or sister to brainstorm any things that might be needed. This will help ensure that you don’t forget any essential items!

Spread the cost

If you’re catering yourself, you can build up your stock up over time. Look for the special offers in the supermarkets so you get the best prices. By spreading the cost, you’ll make it easier on your wallet.

Just don’t forget to keep receipts and keep track of everything you spend!

Go local

Try and source your produce locally. You will get better quality and better prices – and best of all, you may even get your food at cost price and delivered free.

We used local butchers, bakers, florists and greengrocers. We found that because we were buying in large quantities, we got help and advice from the experts, the freshest produce, lower prices and delivery to our door.

Our tips here are intended to help you as much as possible, but to be successful in your wedding catering, you will need to carefully plan and think about the food.

If you’ve got any tips and ideas on DIY wedding catering, I’d love to hear from you, so contact me.

Related articles:

DIY Catering For Your Wedding – Hints and Tips
Tips For Cutting Your Catering Costs
Got A Catering Question You Need Answering?
Easy Wedding Food For Buffets
Where To Start When Catering Your Own Wedding

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