What Kind Of Food To Serve At A Wedding

Wedding Reception Finger Foods For An Event Everyone Will Remember

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Weddings can quickly become expensive and complicated affairs. Sometimes the stress, cost, and decisions end up overshadowing what youre meant to be celebrating. Wedding reception finger foods are a fantastic way to make things simpler.

There are many advantages to taking this approach. For one thing, finger food is cheaper than full meals. You can even prepare much of the food yourself or get family and friends to help out. In fact, using finger food is one of the easiest ways to keep your wedding costs down.

The timing becomes more straightforward too, as most finger foods can be prepared before the big event. Some can even be served at room temperature, so theres no need to worry about keeping them hot or cold.

Finger food makes it easy to keep everyone happy too. You can serve a selection of flavors and styles, then guests can pick the things they like the most. This is so much simpler than trying to match everyones preferences with full meals.

Regardless of your events theme or your personal preferences, its important to offer some variety. Try to include some classic foods and some more exotic ones. Likewise, some of the foods should be light and healthy, while others can easily be heavier and more satisfying. This type of variety helps make sure that your guests enjoy themselves.

• Tea Sandwiches

Encourage Guests To Byob

Asking guests to bring their own booze isnt as tacky as it sounds. Just make it clear on your wedding invitation or website that you wont be serving alcohol during cocktail hour. Then set the stage for a respectable cocktail hour by doing any of the following:

• Provide Mixers. For guests who bring hard liquor, provide several inexpensive mixers, such as soda and fruit juice. Dont forget the glasses, ice, and disposable bar napkins.
• Themed Happy Hour. Set a theme for your cocktail hour drink, such as craft beer, and encourage guests to bring their favorite examples of the theme.
• Cocktail Potluck. Use a shared spreadsheet or your preferred free organizing tool, like PotluckHub to organize a cocktail potluck in which guests bring various drinks to share.

These are only examples. Your BYOB cocktail hour can look however you want it to look.

Cheap Wedding Food Ideas

Everyone wants to serve their guests the best of the best, but sometimes steak and lobster just arent in the budget. Just because you cant spend much money on your catering doesn’t mean you have to settle for boring meals. Use these ideas as inspiration and work with your caterer to come up with the perfect menu.

Also Check: Officiating Weddings In California

What Foods Are Served At Indian Weddings

The general rule of planning the catering for any Hindu wedding is sumptuous dishes. If you eat meat, definitely include chicken dishes like butter chicken. Paneer dishes like saag paneer and muttar paneer, along with kofta curries like aloo kofta, will make the rest of your North Indian spread extra decadent.

Wedding Finger Food Menu Ideas

From succulent dishes to savory sauces to sweet treats, there are dozens of options for delicious finger foods suitable for a wedding reception.

• Individual desserts such as cookies, petit fours, cream puffs, or fruit tarts
• Cupcake wedding cakes to continue the finger food theme even with this all-important dessert
• A selection of sliced breads, bread sticks, or rolls

• Attractive fruit trays with chocolate, cheesecake, or whipped topping dips
• Fondue stations or chocolate fountains for dipping
• Deli trays with assorted meats and cheeses
• Small snacks such as pillow mints, chocolate candies, or nuts
• Wings with a hot buffalo glaze or barbeque sauce
• Popcorn chicken or shrimp
• Mini quiches, stuffed mushrooms, or vegetable rolls
• Assorted cheese and cracker trays with mustards or other sauces
• Meatballs with assorted savory sauces
• Dainty tea sandwiches, such as cucumber or chicken salad
• Deviled eggs

When choosing a finger food menu, the couple should always consider the varied tastes of their guests by providing a wide enough selection so anyone with unusual diets can enjoy the wedding feast. Furthermore, offering both classic comfort foods and more exotic gourmet treats gives everyone the opportunity to enjoy their favorite food as well as sample new dishes.

Recommended Reading: Can You Officiate Your Own Wedding In California

Create A Printed Wedding Menu For Your Reception

Want to create a custom wedding menu for your wedding reception tables? Check out the Menu Maker Templates from Canva or peruse the options in our wedding printables section!

We hope youve found this list of Inexpensive Wedding Foods helpful and inspiring! You may even want to browse for some creative recipes to incorporate these affordable foods into your wedding catering menu! And we hope it helps you save money on your wedding catering, too!

Happy Planning!

For A More Substantial Fish Option Shift Away From Salmon And Check Out Chilean Sea Bass

Pescatarians frequently have a single entree option at wedding receptions salmon, or bust. However, if you want to mix up your menu and include a fish choice that’s substantial, satisfying, and delicious, give Chilean sea bass a try.

Chef de cuisine Sean Carney of the waterfront Madison Beach Hotel in Madison, Connecticut, likes to pair Chilean sea bass with citrus and grassy herbs, which add brightness and balance to the already-flavorful fish. “Citrus and herb encrusted Chilean sea bass with Mediterranean couscous and a tomato coulis light yet filling dish features bright flavors perfect for a memorable wedding dining option. Chilean sea bass is a pleasant and ‘hearty’ fish that pairs well with the acid of the citrus and herb crust,” Carney recommended.

Also Check: Addressing Wedding Invitations To A Family With No Inner Envelope

Bake Your Own Desserts

If you can crowdsource elaborate appetizers, you can surely crowdsource desserts. In fact, since most of your guests are likely to have ovens big enough to bake a few dozen cookies or cupcakes at a time, your bring-your-own-desserts campaign may well get more buy-in.

Simple, mix-based desserts are cheaper than scratch-made, protein-rich appetizers too.

If youre apprehensive about sending out an open call for dessert contributions, you can ask each member of your wedding party to supply a dessert.

Of All Of The Decisions Surrounding A Wedding One Of The Most Fraught Is What Food To Serve The Guests

Of all of the decisions surrounding a wedding, one of the most fraught is what food to serve. After all, catering costs can eat up half of a wedding budget. And when you’re dropping that many grands, you probably feel like you should get something, well, grand.

Between attending the nuptials of college, high school, and work friends, I have become acutely aware of the obstacles and limitations that wedding caterers face: makeshift kitchens in tents, feeding 200 people at the same moment, trying to please a diverse crowd, and more. These factors make preparing certain foods inadvisable–and others downright impossible.

Here’s a list of foods to avoid at your wedding, at all costs:1.Risky Foods: Even if you and your betrothed fell in love over a plate of steak tartare, a wedding is not the place for raw meat or eggs, or unpasteurized cheese. Are you trying to create a wave of food poisoning? And while you’re at it, let’s stay away from the fugu, too, okay?

Also Check: How To Stuff Wedding Invitations Without Inner Envelope

Inexpensive Affordable Wedding Food Ideas

#1: Order a wedding meal from a local restaurant

We have seen couples order their wedding reception meals from their favorite local restaurants. These could be your favorite Indian or Mediterranean restaurants or any place else. The quotes could be as low as seven dollars per person, plus all the dinnerware and serving equipment. Some local eateries even provide the option of serving the food buffet style for usually a very reasonable price.

here to explore a myriad of wedding catering options from the comfort of your home!

#2: Cake & Punch: Have a do-it-yourself dessert wedding

Suppose your event is scheduled after dinner time. In that case, you can easily have a desserts-only wedding reception, which can save you large amounts of money. This means that you will be only serving drinks and sweets to the guests.

You can ask the best baker in your family or friends to bake their specialties for wedding desserts. Next, beautifully decorate the serving table along with drinks. This idea may sound frugal to many. But believe it or not, a Cake and Punch wedding reception is quite traditional and has been performed on the church lawn for generations!

Let all guests know what to expect beforehand at the wedding reception so that they do not turn up ravenous with just desserts to eat for the celebration.

Need help with desserts at your Cake and Punch wedding reception? Click here to explore a number of amazing cake and dessert vendors in New Jersey!

#5: Have a potluck wedding

Opt For A Tasting Menu

Compared with a take-it-or-leave-it main course, a six- or eight-course tasting menu means greater logistical complexity and higher prep costs. But smaller portion sizes and slower pacing may justify these drawbacks.

If you serve less food overall, you spend less on ingredients. Think of this as a creative alternative to heavy app-only dinners.

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How To Accommodate Dietary Restrictions & Allergies At Your Reception

When it comes to how to word dietary requirements on rsvp, it’s a good idea to preempt common issues that arise. You’ll need to set boundaries, otherwise, people will try to write their own menu entirely! We’d recommend making sure there are at least two options for each menu choice, with one standard dish and another one that’s vegetarian or vegan. Ensure that chefs can easily adapt both recipes for dairy-free, gluten-free, nut-free, etc.

Your wedding invitation food allergy wording can go something along these lines:

“Please let us know if you have any dietary restrictions or requirements, and we’ll do our best to make sure you have at least one tasty menu option per course.”

This manages guests’ expectations and puts the control firmly in your hands. You can communicate with the caterer to get menu options sorted out and serve them on the day. Instead of going back to guests with menu options and asking if they’re okay â be confident in your choice and leave it as a surprise. Let anyone who is concerned know about how allergens are handled and ask the caterer for an allergens chart to give to guests on the day.

Fighting Putin From The Sidelines

Those who choose a sit-down dinner usually send the wedding invitees a response card that includes not only whether they will come or not, but also a dinner selection . With this type of option, your guests may expect to be served a salad course and a main course. Dessert is usually the wedding cake. Bread and/or rolls are often served with the meal. Sit-down is generally more expensive because of the service costs associated.

Wedding Food – dessert buffet

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Mini Grilled Cheese Sandwiches With Tomato Soup

Mini grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup are the best option, especially if you dont want to spend too much money on your winter wedding after-party. Tomato soup will keep your guests warm on a cool night, and cheese sandwiches will keep them satisfied for a long time.

Bringing it all together

So, there you have it: 55+ wedding reception food menu ideas to get you started. Of course, you can tailor your wedding menu to your preferences.

However, it is always a good idea to discuss your food preferences with your caterer ahead of time. As a result, you will have a great wedding food menu and a stress-free wedding preparation.

Happy Wedding

Your Wedding And Reception Is Your Day

You are bound to get lots of advice when planning your wedding day. There is no “right or wrong” way to serve your guests at the reception, however. Like other considerations, your personal preference and tastes should dictate what you decide for a menu.

Above all, try to relax and enjoy the anticipation of getting married!

This content is accurate and true to the best of the authorâs knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

Recommended Reading: How To Address Wedding Invitations To Families

Wedding Food Ideas To Treat Your Guests

Need some wedding food ideas inspiration? Browse through classics like chicken or unique options such as veggie burgers and land on the perfect menu.

Are you coming up short on wedding food ideas? Your menu is one of the trickiest decisions youll make during the wedding planning process. Make sure to ask your venue about any limitations they may have before you decide. Some venues use in-house catering, others charge a fee to bring in outside vendors, and some have a preferred vendors list that you will need to choose from. Once you find out all the details, make a list of you and your sweethearts favorite dishes and take it to your caterer. They will be able to help you blend in your faves with their expertise to create a menu that is delicious and unique to your event.

To get an idea about what your guests would like to eat, send options in your wedding invitations and give your caterer an accurate count. Whether you want to include classics like chicken or beef, or serve up something unique like vegan burgers, these wedding food ideas are sure to inspire.

Keep reading or jump to one of our wedding food idea sections below:

Hold A Daytime Wedding

Daytime weddings are cheaper than afternoon-into-evening gatherings on multiple counts.

Private reception venues generally charge less for daytime events as long as the party can clear out in time for the evening block. And city parks typically charge nominal fees to reserve pavilions or grills.

Daytime wedding guests also tend to welcome lighter, simpler fare like tea or club sandwiches, basic grillables , or even snack foods . Wedding Spot has plenty of daytime wedding food ideas.

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