A wedding can be so expensive, and the food is often one of the biggest parts of the budget. Fortunately, there are lots of ways you can cut costs while still having great food. I’m sharing 5 of the best ways I’ve found to save money on the food for your wedding.
I think it’s 100% possible to have a beautiful wedding that you love without spending a fortune. The key for us was to prioritize what’s really important and try to save on everything else.
For example, our priorities were a really good photographer and hiring a specific live band that we had seen at another wedding and loved. So we found ways to save in other areas such as the venue, my dress, decorations and food.
Here are 5 ways that you can save money on wedding food and still have a delicious menu to serve your guests.
Find a Venue That Allows Outside Catering
Many venues such as country clubs and hotels require that you use their catering service for your wedding. While you may get the room for free or a small fee, find out how much the food will cost per person.
If you are able to find a venue that allows outside catering, you can shop around for a caterer in your price range, or you could even DIY your wedding food (I’ll cover that later!).
Bonus tip: You may be able to save on the venue cost and the food cost by choosing a less popular date! We got a discount for reserving our venue for a Sunday rather than a Saturday. Weekdays would have been even cheaper but we decided against a weekday wedding. Some caterers or other wedding vendors may offer discounts if you choose a weekday or less popular time of year.
Create a Dessert Bar
Wedding cakes can be SO expensive! If you don’t have your heart set on a cake, create a dessert bar instead. This is an option that can even be free if you get friends and family to bake a dessert.
I decided to put together a dessert bar for my wedding instead of ordering a big wedding cake. I shopped around to get deals on the decorations, cake stands/cookie jars and utensils for our dessert bar.
When we were planning our wedding, several close friends or family members asked if there was any way they could help with the wedding. I asked them to bake a dessert for our dessert bar! My grandma made some pies, Andrew’s aunt baked cookies and a few other friends brought brownies and cheesecake bars.
We also ordered a small cake to cut, mostly for the sake of photos! You can read more about that below in the update I shared after our wedding.
Update:We did end up doing a DIY dessert bar for our wedding and it was a success! I asked a couple of friends and family members to make desserts such as cookies, pies, brownies and cheesecake bars.
I also ordered a small cake from Publix (my favorite flavor, Raspberry Elegance!) for us to cut into during the reception. I asked them to customize the color to our wedding colors and I created my own cake topper. The cake was only about $20, so much less than a wedding cake!
A fun idea is to make your own cake stands! TheseDIY Thrift Store Cake Stands from Frog Prince Paperie are perfect to display the desserts on. Having a variety of heights and sizes will add detail to the table andshow off all those yummy desserts!
Just Serve Appetizers and Desserts
This post onHow to have a {Simple, Tasteful, & Inexpensive} Wedding Reception from Through the Lens of Hannah Diane has lots of great advice for saving money on the reception, especially on the food.
Hannah explained that if don’t hold your reception at a meal time, people won’t expect a full meal. She has some really tasteful ways to have a great reception without serving a full meal.
Cut Back your Guest List
This can be hard to do, but remember that most caterers charge per person. Keeping the guest list smaller means a smaller bill from your caterer.
For my wedding, we were selective with the guest list but it was so important for us to have our family members there. We each come from large extended families so that really filled up the guest list quick! We didn’t have much room to cut the guest list so we found other areas to cut costs such as the dessert bar I mentioned above and bringing in our own caterer.
Do It Yourself
Do you have some friends or family members who love to cook? Get them on board to help you DIY the food for your wedding. Be sure to delegate and keep most the work off of yourself though, you don’t want to add stress to your wedding day.
I found lots of great tips and ideas forA DIY Wedding Reception for 200 in this post from The Kitchn. They go into a lot of detail!
Which of these ideas would you try? If you are already married, did one of these ideas work for you?
