Food Ideas

@penny your on a good track, also listen to Amanda ^ great advice! We'll be having everything done ahead and the. Heating it to the right temp and holding it with sternum heat to serve. I don't understand why people are so against self catering... people eat out all the time and get sicknesses! Also I have a special situation because my family and friends are mainly vegetarian (some vegan) and there is no cater within over two hours drive that could make vegetarian food. Thankfully my mom and I have lots of food service experience and we have friends with experience as well who are helping. Just some encouragement after all the negativity... I'm sorry! Your wedding and food will be wonderful.

If you can't afford to do it the right way?

Don't do it.

Yes OP, I catered my own wedding. I am a pro chef who married another pro chef, we had a 4000 foot commisary kitchen and a pro kitchen at the venue.

It sucked. Every minute of it.

But hey, I'm sure you're better at it than we were.

It'll be great.

@soon2bmrsh thank you for the encouragement.

What about tacos, lasagna, mashed potatoes, chili con carne ?

@OP You're welcome .yay !lol. For me personally I felt it made it more personal to my guests because I worked hard to give them a good meal. Yes it sucked making 350 meatballs by hand. But it was worth it to me. Hopefully youll have the same feeling. Also we did a favorite foods theme for the food. And then had an option for vegetarians or people who didn't like the first 2. It might be a creative idea for you too. Depending and yours and FH favorites.

@soon to bmrsh I don't get why people who want to go this route get bashed about it either. As long as she knows the commitment and work it takes it shouldnt matter. Also catering is soooooooo expensive. I literally paid an 8th of the amount I was quoted for catering.

Oh my shit.

FSS.....nothing about making your own food makes your wedding more personal.

But yes, take comfort that in three pages of comments, two people encouraged you.

You may not have come here to be "criticized" but had you done some searching on WW you would have seen that self-catering is not promoted on here (and I agree with the majority) and you were not going to get the ideas that are are asking for.

Hire a professional - even pizza is better than self-catering. If you don't have the money for catering then I can assume that you do not have the money to pay for your guests medical bills when they get food poisoning (which can lead to death BTW). On top of that, your guests are coming to your wedding to celebrate your union with your FH, not work. I can also assume that you don't want to be monitoring food instead of socializing with your guests.

@Amanda people get bashed because it can make guests severely sick. Does it happen every time - no, but are you really OK with gambling with your guests health?

@Celia Milton like I've previously stated my wedding I'll do what I want no one can change that. And despite what everyone is saying it will go smoothly and be phenomenal you will see.

What an undertaking I personally wouldn't do I would get a caterer stoffers lasagna is really good and would be easy if you are gung ho about doing this yourself

LOL -- "And despite what everyone is saying it will go smoothly and be phenomenal you will see." Smoothly? Maybe. I'm sure the church ladies are very well acquainted with scooping pasta and sauce on plates at weddings. Will it be phenomenal? No, not unless you have a top band playing live at your reception. Self-catered pasta will never reach the level of phenomenal...and no, we won't see. We'll read your version of it, which, as we can see, has already been written.

Stouffer's Lasagna? Really good? No, it's not really good. It's not even passable as a Friday night meal in your home kitchen. It's mass produced, frozen, imitation Italian food, and it has no place at a wedding (unless your last name is Stouffer, and if it were, you wouldn't be serving that at your kid's wedding).

Penny, you wrote, "I'm working to put money aside to help buy me and my FH's house [sic] that we want. But people have [sic] realize just because were [sic] planning a wedding [sic] doesn't mean all other responsabilites [sic}] stop in life."

"People" (those individuals who are your invited guests), are under NO obligation to realize anything about you or your FH's dream house (or your other responsibilities) just because you sent them an invitation to your wedding. You're asking for hours of their time in the evening of their day off, their attendance in nice attire, their travel expenses, possibly their lodging expenses, and a wedding gift, but...that's not enough.

You obviously will not serve these guests with professionally prepped food, and the suggestion of food poisoning isn't making a dent (and I'm not even getting into alcohol service). There's a reason your approach won't really fly here, but as I said earlier, you've probably endured plenty of these tubs of home prepped spaghetti receptions -- so, I guess it's your turn.

I've mentioned this on other self-catering threads. I picked up Campylobacter Junei at a self catered event. I was violently, humiliatingly sick, and I lived alone at the time. It took 3 weeks to diagnose me properly because they did everything they could not to make sick, weak me do my own fecal sample, then drive it to the office for testing. Once we killed the bug, and I stopped losing weight (17 lbs in 3 weeks), I had to reteach myself how to eat solid food. It took another 5 weeks before I could eat normally and not experience pain. It was embarrassing, awful and very expensive. I did not sue my friend. But you bet if it ever happens again, and I'm sure of where it came from... I'm hiring a lawyer the second I can get off the bathroom floor.

@rachel... for starters we choose to have a dry wedding no alcohol because of our personal preference. And a fyi to you there will be a band and dj at my wedding. As gifts we don't need material things from people and it's there choose to come or not come we are not forcing them to come. Everyone is local no traveling and like I said it's a informal wedding. And the reason it won't fly here is because most of you see it your way or no way. You guys aren't open to something diff

Catering will be your best bet

Yes, Penny, we know. This is your idea of "something different" (it's hardly different): Self catered spaghetti. Mothers in MOB/MOG attire working in the kitchen. No alcohol for personal reasons that belong to the couple. Gifts are accepted, but not necessary because material things, blah, blah, blah...but a realization that the couple want to buy a house, etc, etc., etc.. There is a wedding ''DJ and a band"...oh, and I can guess from whence they came. Fine, if this is what you want and what you are used to, go ahead. However, it's not flying around here because we've seen it and back away from the template. The majority of this community are about guest experience, but you'll find those who agree with you, so that's that.

I've been to these weddings, Penny. Plenty of them. Sure, I was open to something different, for about an hour to an hour and a half, and I remember wishing, just once, that the couple would cater some real food. Each time I dragged myself to weddings featuring food I eventually learned not to eat (hair abounds -- cold is warm -- warm is cold -- people sticking their fingers into dishes because nobody has been paid to oversee service), entertainment that didn't entertain, and soft drinks...well, I caught his eye and tapped my watch, or he did, but either way, we sent each other that unspoken message of "Wanna go out for dinner, have a drink, and pay the babysitter?'

I'll never endorse home cooks pretending that they're caterers, but I sincerely hope the worst thing about your wedding is "blah", not "They're in the emergency room."

Someone at my previous job got sick off of a potluck that their department had at work for their Christmas gathering or whatever it was and she claimed workers compensation and hired a lawyer so that kind of thing really does happen like all the pp are saying.

@Penny this is obviously not gonna change your mind because you stubbornly refuse to listen to all the PPs discussing past experience and reason, but consider that in your 100 person guest list there are probably those with less than average immune systems either naturally or due to immuno-suppression drugs. We definitely have several cases in my family. These family members regularly get sick from meals at home, and even out at some less B sanitation professional restaurants - their bodies are simply more sensitive to smaller amounts of contamination. Sure you may not get sick from self catered food but I promise someone in your party will- whether it be a small passing stomach bug or a more serious case that leads to wrongful death. In the latter case $10k will not have been nearly enough to set aside for the lawsuit. This is a wildly inconsiderate path and you and anyone who encourages you should really consider how little respect you have for your guests

@OP hope you have great insurance for when people get sick. Also "it's my wedding and I'll do what I want" is a shitty attitude to have. I feel bad for your guests because you clearly don't care about their health.

Well... just to give my 2 cents here. I'm doing a self-catered wedding. I haven't for one second wanted to do it any other way (cue dry fish and chicken with veggies and some sort of potato for an outrageous price tag- no thanks), and friends and family stand by our side in this. My sister did her wedding self-catered and we had a great time making the food. Our families and friends are "those kind of people" who like backyard BBQs and a relaxed dinner- NOT run of the mill wedding food. We also have people in our family who their career is catering, so we will be getting additional help from them (of which there was already an expression by them to us). All these people on here who say, "just because it's your wedding doesn't mean you can do what you want" wrong. It is YOUR wedding, YOU can do what YOU want- if someone doesn't like it? Don't come to my wedding. Our wedding is going to be a celebration of bringing two families together with some food, drinks, and music. The amount of grad parties and family reunions I've been to that ALL have been self-catered, have been nothing to my family then less than great- there's been 3 events I've been to in my whole life that have actually been catered and guess what? The food sucked every time. Another thing that gets people wiled up here? I'm also going to have PORTI-POTTIES, MAKING our own cake and cupcakes, and a PLAYLIST FOR MUSIC- cause WE want to- again, don't like it? Feel free not to come. But when I look back at my wedding, the family time we got making the food and desserts and the time spent together all night celebrating in a backyard under a big tent? Worth every second over remembering a cookie-cutter wedding. I don't bash people when they post about their want to have a DJ, or cater their own wedding, stop bashing people for wanting something different.

^ sorry that was a little more than 2 cents haha. Also, to answer your question penny p, baked potatoes(and any type of potato really), maybe a salad bar (have a few different types of lettuce + all additional toppings for people to put on), chicken is easy to do in large quantities(we have Meijer grocery stores near me and they sell fried chicken by large quantities cooked if you wanted to get something like that and make lots of sides), I'm a big fan of pasta and potato salads, different spaghetti dishes. Personally, were doing a big taco and nacho bar with beef and chicken as the main meats! Chafer dishes make great containers to hold warm food in, and you can get big long tubs to fill with ice to keep things cold (my fiancés dad has a table top cooler that he built that keeps things cold for over 24 hours at a time and has a lid on top that we're going to be using).