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Well....I haven't seen a venue yet in my area that will allow us to do our own catering. If your venue does, I would go for a great photographer and cater it yourself. People wont remember the food, but you'll always have the photographs.
Here are some questions you need to ask yourself: Who is going to heat the food? Who is going to put it out? Who is going to check to make sure it stays warm, the area stays clean? Who is going to bus dishes? Who is going to do cleanup? Who is going to serve drinks?
Honestly, I'd downgrade on photographer or guest list before trusting that catering will just "work out" or putting my fam to work if they just want to relax... but that is me, personally. At the very least, if you don't hire a caterer, pay for a wedding coordinator to do everything.
And finally, don't discount catering from restaurants, or unconventional caterers. My caterer runs a culinary program at a school... he's not an official caterer.
I think that you should continue to look. We have a good photographer and are still looking for a caterer. If you are having a backyard wedding and your family and/or friends will help out with the bar-b-que, then that might be an option for you. We are only having up to 50 guests and I don't think it is worth the headache to have to worry about all the logistics of doing it ourselves. Your pictures are something that you will want to look back on over the years and if you decide to have children, you will want them to be able to look at your pictures too and show them to their children.
Catering your own event strikes me as really stressful. It makes me think of when I have a house party, I never really relax until the end, because I'm fussing the whole time over the food and the bar. That's with 30 people, even. Have you done similar things? Were you able to relax? Do you have enough know-how to pull it off? Can you rely on the people who would help you? Would it only be the VIPs, like your mom and FMIL, etc., helping? I think those are the big concerns, not the photographer issue. Answer those questions first.
I don't know about your situation, but I'm all for catering yourself. One thing to consider is that you could make all the food yourself and then hire a few people to serve it and/or keep the food platters full. It would be major savings over the company. We catered my FI's niece's wedding last August. Total probably 7 or 8 people did all the catering for it and while most of it was hors d'ouerves (sp?) it was still very nice and everyone loved the food. I'd opt for a photographer you like as that will be what you have to remember everything by.
I have been to several weddings with DIY catering and it went great. I've seen on the boards some had a not so great experience with it, ie-rushing around the morning of as a bride to get food out...but that is obviously not the way you would want to do it. My parents along with a couple others helped out a friend's wedding where they had a buffet. They helped out before the wedding getting the food ready and storing it, and then they slipped out before all the guests got to the reception and had it set up. So, if you are going to DIY, DELEGATE! Have some friends who are willing to set the food up and handle that aspect for you.
We are doing our own food and having a baked potato bar. We will bake all the potatoes before hand and store them in coolers until an hour or so before the reception when our "helpers" will put them out, along with all of our toppings and goodies that we're serving with them.
It's definitely doable, and I think that it is a no-brainer because Photography is soooo important! The pictures will be all you have left along with your memories once the wedding is over. I myself would want a great photog to capture the day's events.
Here is the link I used to help us figure out the potato bar:
@marci When you bake the potatoes either do it directly on the rack or bake them in a pan of salt. It keeps them from getting that icky dark spot on the bottom.
dont add unnecessary stress on yourself/bridal party/groom/family so close to/on the day of your wedding. just book the caterer.
I have to disagree... IMHO, I don't think that it would add stress to the bride/party/groom/family close to. Like I already mentioned, I've been to several weddings where it has worked totally fine. We are enlisting some of my parent's friends and it's not rocket science to set up a buffet in a timely manner. If you are prepared, it shouldn't be stressful for any of the parties involved.
@marci 607--- but these people are GUESTS at your wedding. IMHO, you just don't do that to your guest. Let them enjoy the wedding.
Actually, they are my parent's friends, and know me well enough that they were willing to help. Even if they were guests, guests are people you invite because they love you and want to be a part of your wedding day. They are not there for a show or presentation or to be catered to, but to show their love and support.
You could always hire someone to help serve the food you prepare...
if it comes down to either a professional caterer or professional photographer go with the photographer. that is what will last forever!
GOOD LUCK....i wish you the best.
We are self-catering...kind of. By which I mean, we are making all the food in advance, but hiring people to come in on the day and heat it up, serve it, and wash up. I don't want to be doing dishes at my own wedding reception - and I don't want my friends to have to do that either, although they might try to volunteer. We are in a high-cost area, so I estimate we're still saving at least 50% by doing it this way.
If cost is your major concern, though, you might first look in to getting someone to come in with simpler food. You can get BBQ pretty cheap for an event (sadly, this works less well for vegetarians like me). Or you could schedule a later wedding and just do desserts.
I voted ok photographer and good caterer, because I think self catering is a really dicey idea, and a lot harder in actuality than in thought, but ...
really I wished there was an option for "serve appetizers and save money on food + great photog" or something like that.
I don't know... I tend to think a good photographer is priceless.....
Among the people I know, self-catering a wedding would not be acceptable. Our families and friends are pretty diverse in background and opinion, but they would not be ok with being asked to "help out", because we believe that guests should be able to relax rather than having to work the wedding.
Even if I was able to find people to help me with the food (or hired people for serving/cleaning up), all the guests would be upset to know I splurged on something that only FI and I care about (photographer) while being super-cheap with something that matters to them (food). Being ridiculed by family/friends for many years is personally not worth it to me, even for good photographs.
@GirlWithARing, your family and friends would seriously ridicule you?
I guess that I just don't understand this. My guests aren't going to be asked to "help out" but I don't think there is anything wrong with asking my parent's friends to help out and obviously some of you do.
I don't think that making your own food has to come across as cheap to the guests, either.Of course there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. The bride, guests, or wedding party running around the morning of would obviously be the latter. It all depends on the way you handle it.
@girlwitharing I'm sorry that you're guests would think it was so horrible.
Right after we announced our engagement, my mom offered to pay for food costs if we had my older sister and her husband cater, but I declined, mostly because I've eaten my sister's food and she and I don't have the same preferences in yumminess. But anyway, I know that (in my area at least) it's very popular to self-cater. Especially if you want anything that's not traditional wedding fare. I think for FI's neice's wedding that we helped cater they spent about $1k on food and gave FI and I a check for like $150 or something, which we were not expecting at all. People were raving about the food all night long and it was only appetizers. I agree with marci, if you do it correctly, most people wouldn't guess that it was "homemade".
The pictures are more important, to me at least. The question is, what is more important to you? Go w/ that.
Also, I find it ridiculous that people would "ridicule" anyone for having family/friends help w/ cooking for a wedding. Potluck anyone? I mean, if you need to keep you costs down and people are willing to help cook, then great! Not everyone has the money to spend or family to pay for it.
Weddings can be crazy expensive if you let them - I guess some are in need of a reality check if the idea of cooking your own food is ridiculous. Families in my area manage to pull it off.
I would have it catered- just because I wouldn't wantto have to worry about it- thats just me.
I'd definately go with good photographer and own catering. That food might be remembered for a year tops. Your pictures are for a life time.
Some Suggestions...Talk to your vendors tell them you need it to be in a specific price range and see if they can work with you. This might be easier for the photographer than the caterer. Also maybe choose a package with photos on a disc only and print them out yourself to save money. As for catering have you looked into local restaraunts? We haven't booked anything yet but it looks like we'll be able to save some money by going thru local restaraunts as opposed to an actual caterring company. It was particularly easy to find options in BBQ but that just may be where we live. For us food is more important but I don't feel like we sacrificed on our photographer either. Good Luck and most importantly make sure YOU are happy with whatever you choose.
I feel like it almost wouldn't be worth saving the $ to do your own catering. Unless you could totally remove yourself from the process and have trusted family/friends take over with the shopping, preparation, setup and breakdown. You just don't want to be dealing with that on your wedding day (or the night before!).
If you have the option of downgrading your photog to afford someone else to cater it, I would choose that option.
My suggestion is to go with the better photographer and consider changing the structure of your wedding reception - maybe do a brunch, cocktail party, or dessert party.
My fiance and I are pretty sure that we will be semi self-catering... We're opting for a late evening cocktail party (starting at 8pm) since most of our guests are young. For our reception the plan is to serve sweet and savory food - cheese, charcuterie, olives, pickled veggies, fresh and dried fruit, nuts, bread, crackers, cupcakes, cookies, tarts, etc... so most of the stuff only requires a little bit of preperation/cooking. For the set-up/tear-down help, we've posted ads on craigslist in the food/beverage job section and we've also talked to a few local restaurants that have busboys/servers who are off the night we are getting married. We're estimating $200 for one server or busboy - just to help with set-up, keeping an eye on the food, and clean up. For most servers and almost all busboys (outside of major cities) $200 for a few hours of work is a great deal for them.
We also considered contacting the local cooking schools to see if any of the students might be willing to cater the reception. And I've contacted a few local gourmet grocery stores/cheese shops to see if they might make gourmet cheese and charcuterie trays (with all the accompaniments) for us and I've received several quotes for less or the same as what it would cost us to buy the food items ourselves so we might go that route with the savory food.
As far as the sweets are concerned - I have a great group of family members and friends who are awesome bakers... so most of the sweets will be homemade and donated from the family/friends. Other sweets I'll buy in bulk from Sams or Costco. Then all you need are some great trays or display platters to pull the whole thing together...
I went to a wedding last summer where the father of the groom grilled steaks and burgers for everyone (about 80 guests.) It was SO delicious and as a guest, it did not appear cheap at all (in fact, seeing him flipping burgers and laughing in his apron added to the intimate family gathering feel.) I did feel kind of bad for him because he didn't get to sit down, relax, and socialize, but I do know that it meant a lot to be able to do that for his son, and he did get to greet everyone when they came up to get their meat. I think its all how you handle it/look at it, and the attitudes of the people who would be doing the actual work.
you would be surprised on hiw cheap you can get a price per head for caterers. ours is gonna be about 11 bucks per person, which for 75 people adds up less then 1000 bucks. i've even seen people on here get it cheaper then that. this insludes a full meal and we dont have to worry about the stress of cooking it. we are doing the appertizers ourself to save money, which shouldnt be too hard, would you be able to do something like that?
We are catering our own wedding. Doing it banquet style, so it will not be that hard to keep things set out when it becomes empty. I will be hiring a couple of my daughters friends, who have experience in waiting on tables, to clear plates and keep everything full in the buffet. They were all for it since it was a little extra money in their pockets (though they keep telling me they don't want to be paid for it) and they get to come to the wedding this way. Since we are keeping it so small they wouldnt be coming any other way.
We just did the catering for my cousin's wedding. It was soo much work and most of our family members have experience in catering/resturant biz. I was a BM and at the end of the night about 20 of us bussed all the tables, washed the silverware (plates and cups were disposable). Washed all the serving ware, and then had to load it all. We started cooking at noon and we finished loading all the serveware and cleaning the venue at 2am that night. We were all exhausted and all of us family/friends missed much of the party because we were too busy refilling the buffett line or cleaning up the tables and such.
If it were me I'd pay to have it catered because my aunt probably spent close to 1000 to feed 100 people. She spent several weeks borrowing serving dishes and returning them. I think you can find a good balance of a cheap caterer. Maybe like some suggested above hire people to serve or buy the food and pick it up. But to do both was a lot of work and if you don't have enough help you could easily get overloaded.
We hired a couple of friends to buy food (at BJ's), prepare it, serve it, and clean up afterward. We paid $500 for their services, plus about $200 for the food itself (for 60 people). Of course, we had enough food left over that we were eating it for a month after the wedding!
I think it would be impossible to self-cater with no help at all. Even if you prepared all the stuff ahead of time and served it buffet style, someone would need to be checking when things ran low, bringing out more, and taking away used dishes. Do you really want to be attempting that in your wedding dress?
I will say, though, that the idea of our guests ridiculing us for any of our choices about the wedding is foreign to me. As one of our guests put it, if we'd invited everyone over to sit on a blanket on a bare floor with no food or drink, just to help us celebrate our getting married, they would have been there and happy to do it.
I would definitely go with a good photographer and cater your own. that is just what we are doing ourselves. If you think about all the weddings you have attended, you just don't really remember the food for very long. I have some friends who went with the 'more affordable' photographer and each one of them has had some regrets associated with that decision. As for the hassle of catering your own wedding let me recommend "The Perfect Party Food". There are tons of recipes that can be made ahead of time and frozen. We did have to rent quite a bit to cook and keep food warm but it was still so so much more affordable. We are hiring someone we know to manage the grill and the DOC will make sure everything else stays warm and plentiful. We still saved more than half of what we would have spent on a catering budget had we hired out. We are having a bunch of side dishes, a couple of soups, appetizers, marinated chicken and steak, steamers, clams on the half shell, and then a vegan meal as well as a gluten free meal. We are also having a desert table along with the wedding cake. The fact that we are catering our reception has gotten all our guests (our guest list is about 100) so excited...novelty, I guess. My mom is making a soup and my FI's grandmother is making Italian wedding soup both are old family recipes which I am going to print inside our programs. I am getting together with friends and family to do some of the cooking that will be frozen, and I am anticipating having an absolute blast while we play in the kitchen. Its definitely doable and enjoyable. Good luck!
I would go with a good photographer and reevaluate your catering. Do you have any local caterers that drop off food? Some caterers offer the option of dropping off and setting up as well. Those are ways you can save a good amount of money.
Also, you could have the caterer drop off the food, and then hire someone maybe from craigslist or someone you know to serve. Do you know any high school kids who might want to work for cheap?
In the end all you really have is your photography so I wouldn't skimp on that. You don't want to regret that later.
We are partially catering our own wedding. My FI (an experienced chef) is making the cocktail hour food and the cake with my assistance. We plan to do most of the cooking in the weeks before the wedding and freeze things. (We're investing in a small chest freezer for the basement.) All the cocktail hour food will be stuff that works at room temperature. Our caterer is making the main meal and setting up/serving the cake and appetizers.
It's partially a cost-saving move (we'll save about $1500 this way), but it's also that my FI, who has catered 100s of weddings for others, felt funny about not making a contribution to ours. We have a caterer who is fine with this arrangement (in fact, he suggested it) and a venue that doesn't care.
Maybe it's not all-or-nothing for you either. Can you do SOME of the cooking without taking responsibility for the entire meal?
FI and I are both (former) chefs and really looking forward to doing our own catering -- I think FI is more excited about that than anything else! Neither of us are very formal so we're going to have a barbeque/buffet/awesome gourmet picnic. We're planning to hire students from the local culinary school to handle buffet maintenance and clean-up, but the prep will be all us.
Long story short, I say go for it! Do your own catering and hire a good photographer.
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So we found a photographer and a caterer that we like but they are kind of expensive. We don't know if we can afford both.
What do you all think about catering the wedding yourselves? We are looking at 85-100 guests and we want a bbq style buffet (salmon and steak).
The other idea is to take a photographer we only kind of like and keep the caterering or the other way around?