Potluck?

Won't let me edit or delete

*we're **shucking ***mask ****The works. *****them

Personally I don’t think this is ok. Would your venue even allow this? Every venue we looked at required licensed caterer. Food safety is a serious concern and as hosts you could be sued by someone’s health insurance company if they end up getting food poisoning.

View Quoted Comment She didn't say no when I spoke to the woman about it, but I'll directly ask her Monday. They'd be the ones bringing the food, so they would know how to take precautions of their own cooking. Plus, it's all family that's coming and I seriously doubt that my family would sue me...

View Quoted Comment Is everyone in your family food safety trained? Do they all live near your venue so everything will remain at the correct temperatures while they’re traveling? I didn’t say your family would sue you. I said their health insurance company would. Health insurance companies will do anything they can to not pay for care.

Just a heads up, everyone on this site is mostly against pot luck or self catered weddings. Be prepared for answers you’re not going to like. As far as I’m concerned, you know your crowd best. Do what you want. We hired a drop off caterer doing local BBQ for $550 for 100 guests. Mostly because I didn’t want to deal with it. They’ll deliver and set it up buffet style in proper chafing dishes to keep the food warm. Best of luck to you!

View Quoted Comment No need to be mean about it. The family members that would be bringing food, if that's the case, have common sense for one. Plus, we were taking to a friend about borrowing his food warmers and such, so temperature wouldn't be an issue. Thanks for your input

View Quoted Comment So I've noticed. Thank you dear. I'd delete the post if it would let me. Yeah. I just don't have that much money to spend. I'm a stay at home mom and he works his butt off, but I don't know if we'd have enough with everything we're already having to pay for

I think potluck weddings are kind of tacky honestly. There's no guarantee that the food is properly handled by whoever made it and it's very risky if people have to travel with their dishes for some distance. You could just have your wedding at a non meal time and do cake and punch reception so no full meal is required.

View Quoted Comment Yeah I havent found a way to delete posts here either. I would sit down and decide what the maximum budget you can spend on food is, and go from there. My entire family and my FHs family has all done self-catered weddings with no issue. We are the only ones not doing one. If your budget allows, you could always order drop off or take out catering for the meats and have family make the sides.

I also don’t know what style you’re going for or budget is, but we considered fried chicken. We love southern style comfort food. We have a local place that will do 200 pieces of chicken for about $150 so it’s not super pricey. Think outside of the box and do what is true to you. If you want a more laid back, budget friendly wedding than go for it!! We also looked into food trucks lol

View Quoted Comment Those are really good ideas! I've thought about the food truck, but hubby said no because we'll have people there that may not be able to afford it. We're doing a masquerade. I honestly don't know what our budget is, I just guestimated at 5,000 or less. I have a friend that offered to cater, but said that he wasn't comfortable making a 4 hour drive with that much food. :/

View Quoted Comment With a food truck your guests would expect you to foot the bill. Our total budget was $4,000 but we’ll probably end up closer to $5,000. The budget tool on here is helpful. Plug in your total budget and it’ll tell you how much you can spend on every category, and then change it to your liking.

No. It’s not your guests responsibility to provide food for your event and they definitely don’t owe it to you just because you’re giving them favors. Cut the favors and don’t offer to pay for attire for your wedding party. These are unnecessary expenses that you’re volunteering to take on when you don’t even have the budget for necessary expenses like food. Not to mention the liability that comes with potlucks or self centered weddings. Postpone until you can have the wedding that you want or have a cake and punch reception at a non-meal time.

If you can't afford a big wedding then you shouldn't have a big wedding. It is not your families job to provide food for your wedding. It is your wedding so you need to provide the food.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for your input. I'm not having a big wedding. Thank you 😊

View Quoted Comment That sounds like a plan. I'll figure something out. I was hoping this would get me some good ideas, but aside from you, it's gotten me stressed out from all the hateful comments. Thank you, hun.

View Quoted Comment I didn't say they owed it to me, thank you. Thanks for your input

I also don’t believe a potluck is appropriate or safe for a wedding. If it’s beyond your budget to even get a Mexican, Italian or BBQ caterer for $10-$15 per person, hold the wedding at a non meal-time (like 2 pm) and just do a simple cake & punch reception. That’s totally fine.

Definitely skip favors (waste of money and not necessary). You can also skip programs and a traditional guests book where guests just sign their names to save money.

Not only is it tacky to ask friends and family to provide food for your wedding, and the above mentioned food safety issues, but then your friends and family end up working your reception to serve and clean. Plus, can you really rely on all your guests bringing edible food that will be enough for everyone? No one wants 12 bags of chips and 10 boxes of cookies. I get not having money, but there are restaurants that will bring in all the food and warming stations, set it all up, and most likely it will all be disposable so you can discard it at the end of the event. No one here is trying to slam you, and it's not just about etiquette, there are real problems I have seen with something like this.

No pot lucks ever for a wedding. Especially at CM. If you don't mind me asking what room did you get and at what price because I didn't think they were affordable at all for what they are offering. Also if you did a potluck all the food would be cold. Have you already booked them? What is your budget for food?