diy Catering

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It's not realistic to have such a small budget for so many people. Have you thought about doing immediate family only and taking them out to dinner? Getting second jobs so you can afford to host your guests properly? Pushing the wedding date back?

View Quoted Comment Your parents are the most honored guests there.
Try again.

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Are your parents and in-laws not guests? Ouch.

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OP unfortunately your guest list is TOO big for your budget. You need to make some decisions; cutting your guest list, pushing your date back to better afford the wedding you want (if you truly want all of your family there) or changing to an off season month. Italian catering is very very budget friendly.

Op with self catering there are MANY health risk. Every once in a blue someone comes along nailing a self catered wedding, and I mean literally every once in a blue, but MOST of the time, its a disaster. Either someone gets sick, someone doesn't get to enjoy the wedding as they should or God forbid someone ends up hospitalized. I'm not trying to scare you I just want you to know all of the risk.

I'm going to go with this is a bad idea. Of course it's your wedding so you can do what you want but also be prepared if someone gets sick.
Do you really want to worry about cooking on your wedding day? If budget is a concern then maybe do a cake and punch reception instead. There's so many other options with staying within a budget without skimping on a caterer.

You really need to cut your guest list. That is not enough for 200 people...

Also - do not self cater for 200 people. That is asking for disaster. And provide alcohol.

Have you tried looking into hosting it at a restaurant? Most of the time they don't make you pay for the space, you just have to reach a certain minimum. And with 200 people I'm sure that wouldn't be too hard to do.

1. I am a real person
2. I don' have a picture because I've tried to post one and it won't let me.
3. I put a generic name because people don' need to know who I am.
4. My reception budget is about 4k. My wedding budget about 8k.
5. I wasn't saying we were set on DIY catering. I said I wanted to know people's opinion.
6. I don' mind differing opinions. I just don't care for the disrespectful comments.

You really want to be cooking and prepping all the food on your own wedding day??? That sounds like way too much work especially for 200 people. Food is always the most expensive part of a wedding and for good reason too.

Also doesn't matter if your a good cook or not, cooking things in bulk is a recipe for inconsistency. And I'm pretty sure you're not used to cooking for 200 plus people every weekend.

What are you spending the other $4k on?! Your breakdown is way out of whack.

View Quoted Comment No one is being disrespectful...it's not allowed Others have different opinions than yours, they are allowed to share them. But you do you

You can't make food for 200 people in 20 minutes, not in a conventional kitchen.

I think it is a bad idea, because I actually did it for my wedding to my ex-husband. We did a pasta bar and prepared tons of stuff ahead of time and froze it. Then about 2 days before, we pulled it all out of the freezer and put it in the fridge, and was hoping to just be able to warm it up. It was a HUGE MESS!! Everything was still frozen so it took twice as much time as we thought it was, and I ended up being stressed out of my stinking mind, and didn't have time to spend getting ready. I ended up being an hour late to my wedding, and my hair and makeup were HORRIBLE and of course my pics ended up looking like CRAP!!

I echo what so many other people have said here. Do not do this. We are trying to keep costs down as well so we are limiting our guest list and then will do Italian style catering - like someone else said, it is more reasonable than you think. We are able to have enough choices for both appetizers and the entrée and accommodate allergies, etc and still keep the catering costs down. DIY catering is not a good idea on so many levels.

Also, I am not the most experienced poster or bride but.....I think it is also a bad idea to not serve alcohol. Again, we are keeping costs down and our venue allows us to bring our own alcohol so we are - sticking to beer and wine - and again - limiting the guest list.

Good luck!

I've self catered extremely large parties before. My most recent was in September for 250 guests.

If you have a food handler's certificate and you are familiar with large party hosting, I don't think the food safety thing is an issue. Most of us who host large events are familiar with the ins and outs of cooking.

The bigger issue in my opinion is the amount of time it takes. At the aforementioned party, my fiance and I were working from 8:30am to 6:30am the following day. We had very little time to mingle with our guests and to actually enjoy the party we were throwing.

We don't want that for our wedding. We had considered catering it, and then realized we don't want to remember our wedding day like that. We want to relax and have fun and see our guests. For that reason alone we have chosen to hire a caterer.

Pasta in particular would not be something that I would serve at a large event. Once cooked it loses texture fast and becomes gluey or dried out depending on if it's in sauce. It would be very difficult to cook up enough for 200 people all at once and get them served quickly enough that the food is still hot and not lukewarm.

If you are dead set on self catering, I would recommend choosing a crock pot entree- that's how we served our 250 guests- 15 8qt crock pots kept everything at a safe temperature and it was served buffet style. It doesn't look formal in any way so it was fine for a casual party but I don't think it would be a good look at a wedding.

The opinion here is going to be that it's not a good idea, for the reasons already outlined.

You do not want yourselves, or your family, to be working all day (I hope). You want them to be able to relax and enjoy the day.

Food safety is a real issue. I once made MYSELF sick ON MY OWN COOKING because I made a small mistake when handling chicken. This can and does happen with self-catered and potluck events. Imagine how awful you would feel if you made a small mistake because you were distracted by the million other things going on and people got sick.

There are a lot of inexpensive catering options.

If you're still going over budget with an inexpensive caterer, cut and cut and cut your guest list. We wanted to do a big thing with our extended families, between 125 and 150 people. We quickly realized that we could in no way afford that, so we cut to parents, grandparents, siblings, and a handful of friends for a total of ~30 people.

Sure, I'm sad that we couldn't make our original vision happen, but this new version of the event is going to be a blast and SO much more affordable...plus we're treating everyone to really upscale, nice food & drinks instead of the cheapest catering we could find.

I'd really re-consider DIY food if you want to enjoy your wedding day. Look into catering from The Olive Garden or Famous Daves or any other restaurant near you. Guarantee it will be far better for both you (in terms of logistics and stress) and your guests (eating professionally prepared foods).

I'd just think it is not worth the trouble to take all of the measures needed into making all of the food for your own wedding. It's a day that you would want to relax and focus on getting married instead of focusing on doing so much work. And it's not fair to enlist or shirk that responsibility onto other people in your life, even if they offer. The most important aspect is food safety, but if you're willing to risk food safety, I would think the effort required would at least deter one from going this route.

This will probably get hidden but Susan... where do you keep 15 crockpots?? Did you borrow some? Where were they plugged in?

OP, the last thing you want to do is cook on your wedding day. Rethink this

DIY catering will not be as cheap as you think it will be. Do you already own all the serving equipment, chafing dishes, crock pots etc to hold food for 200 guests? Insurance in case someone is ill from the food? Someone will be cooking all day and then you need people to serve and clean up afterwards. Your parents are meant to be your guests. The most important guests there. Going this route, when will they have time to get ready, will they be able to take family photos or have to race back to the food? This is a big day for them too and they should get to enjoy every minute of it.

Look into cheap catering options for a venue that lets you use external vendors. They have all there own equipment and can be cheaper than you expect. Italian is one of the cheapest options out there so stick with it but from a reputable caterer. And make sure you offer an alternative for anyone with allergies.