Wedding Catering For Small Numbers

by Fiona
(Hertfordshire, UK)

We are having a very small wedding with family and guests coming back to our house after the ceremony. We’ve invited 30 people, but we’re not expecting all of them to make it, so we’d be catering for less. The wedding is at the end of July 2008 and I’m assuming the weather will be hot. What kind of wedding food would you suggest? Money will be tight, but I don’t want to look too cheap.

Answer:
What a fabulous month to be married. July is often great for weddings and I always think it’s drier than May or June. (Although, I’m no meteorologist!)

I imagine that your guests will be milling around the garden and your house, which means that a buffet would probably be best. It’s also the easiest to prepare and can be quite cost effective. I had a buffet for my wedding and in the wedding catering section there are details of what we had. We generally stuck to salads, cold meats, quiches, salmon and cheeses as they were easy to prepare. You can find all the recipes here.

Catering for around 30 people shouldn’t be too difficult either. It’s a nice number and easy to handle. The wedding buffet menu caters for 50, so you could just half the quantities and you should be ok for your reception.

To help ease the load, you could get some of your guests to help out as I’m sure you’ll be busy in the run up to the wedding. I had a bridesmaid make a salad, an aunt made a few quiches and my mother-in-law did the salmon. As they say – many hands make light work.

Having a buffet doesn’t have to look or taste cheap either. You can buy quality ingredients without shelling out too much. For example, if you’re buying sliced meat, get it from the local butcher as it will be better quality and better value for money. They’ll also help you with number of portions and may even deliver it on the day!

One thing I would say is you should be very careful about health and hygiene. Make sure you have extra fridge space to keep things cold and only put the food out just before serving. You don’t want to be remembered as the wedding where everyone got food poisoning! So, brush up on your health and hygiene info at the Food Standards Agency.

I hope that gives you some ideas.






P.S. Don't forget to check out these wedding catering articles!