Buffet for wedding

[Anchormann]

To keep costs down I'm catering my wedding. Venue not suitable for sit down hot meal as only basic kitchen facilities which is fine but I'm having a bit of trouble deciding what to have in a buffet apart from the usual salads and cocktail sausages.

Puddings will be cheesecakes and gateaux plus Wedding cake but what to have as savoury food?

Suggestions please as I don't want it to be like a 1970's time warp

Loads of big bowls of pasta dishes and rice dishes. Coleslaw/ potato salad. Lots of cheese and crackers/chutney/humous. Big trays of cold chicken drumsticks, and buy a load of breadsticks which you can slice and butter. All the best, congrats :)

Could you put chilli or pulled pork or similar in a crock pot/ slow cooker?

Yes to the big bowls of pastas and salads. Not chicken drumsticks.. too bloody fiddly. Some large joints of cold sliced meat... beef, ham, one of those big salmon dishes? Yes to bread and butter... cheese and pates.

Breads, deli meats, pasta salads and normal salads, quiches

If you can heat them in an oven - falafel & pakora with sour cream dips. Baked baby potatoes, cut with a cross on the top & squeezed open a bit, with different toppings on.
Sesame prawn toasts & spring rolls.

Sushi? Cold meats, dips, taspa style things

Beg and borrow slow cookers? Curries, lasagne, pasta dishes.

Have you got trusted friends/relatives that could put them on for you in the morning and transport to the venue?

Or

Ask guests to bring a dish not a gift?

As a start I'd pick a theme - so Italian, Middle Eastern, Indian etc and take it from there.

Tbh I'd probably do Middle Eastern as there so so many lovely foods you can prep in advance and serve at room temperature.

If it's any help, Nigella's book Feast has a whole chapter on mass catering with some lovely ideas in it.

A cold buffet is fine.
I would do meat platters, cheese boards, about 3 or 4 different salads, baguettes, some party foods like mini sausage rolls, and a few vegan things like falafels (just in case you have any vegan guests).
Oh and don't forget the cheese and pineapple hedgehogs.
There's plenty to nosh on there.

My mother and me catered for my wedding. We did whole salmon. So easy, buy salmon ( keep head on or off), wrap in foil with salt and dill and a blob of olive oil, bake for an hour in oven. Skin when cool. Then freeze. We had five of them scattered around the road's freezers. Obvs defrost before the do. People serve themselves, looks impressive and they take less than you think so don't do five! Mum is a whizz on cheats coronation chicken which involves apricot jam, mayonaise and cream, curry powder and a load of chopped ckicken. Always, always gets eaten. Never any left of that.

You could get a large roll of beef, roast and thinly slice for cold.

No one eats as much lettuce as you think.

Cocktail saisages roasted with a drizzle of honey always disappear - do loads of those.

Just don't do anything that needs heating and I really suggest that you either hire in help to serve food and drinks or give that responsibility to people who will acrually do it. I spent a birthday party dashing about doing all of that and didn't get to see anyone. Fucking hard work.

It may be 70s but I love a piece of quiche, and there are so many varieties - meat, veggie, crustless. I'm sure you could do a vegan one if necessary too though I've never tried.

Have you looked into local caterers? I only ask because when I've catered for parties in the past I've often spent nearly as much as I would have done on a caterer, and for a wedding I think I'd happily pay a little more to not have the stress of making the food myself.

Mozzarella, tomato and basil are a lovely snack together, too.

Look at Grazing tables on google and Instagram. Loads of ideas for thinks to have and also ways to make it look amazing.

OP are you near a Costco? They have loads of buffet stuff - sandwich platters, barbecue chicken, salads etc

I don't think you can go wrong with joints of cold meat, a whole dressed salmon as a centrepiece (slice top half in two lengthwise - keep whole if possible - remove bone add avocado mayonnaise, return top, add thinly sliced overlapping cucumber slices to look like scales), choice of cheeses, variety of breads. Can't comment on pasta or rice salads as don't eat either, potato salad, coleslaw, green salad (eg tomatoes, radishes, cucumber, spring onions, baby tomatoes (with dressing in a jug), sausage rolls, scotch eggs, different types of bread/rolls, quiche.

Any or all of those will fill up the most hungry guest.

Vegetarian quiche (can then be eaten by both meat and non-meat eaters)
Plates of sliced meats
Potato / pasta / rice salad
Cheeses
Bread
Vegetarian sausage rolls (can then be eaten by both meat and non-meat eaters)
Cous cous salad with a load of chargrilled veg in it

Depending on budget, most supermarkets do really good party food platters - M&S are excellent and a friend of mine catered her buffet wedding entirely from there.

Deli meats, a cheeseboard, olives.......anti -pasto type stuff with artisan breads and some lovely crackers and pickles.

chinese and indian snack selections for me!!!!

We had our reception in a pub and they have a buffet menu for events like that

Had plenty of chips, pasta chicken sausage rolls, vegetarian chilli and rice, jacket potatoes and a few other things, it all got eaten so everybody was happy, we paid roughly 250 for the room which included the price of the food

M&S have excellent buffet foods, I have heard great things about Morrison’s buffet platters too, why not take the stress off yourself and order a selection of things you fancy, I’m not sure it would be that much more expensive too. You don’t want to be panicking about food the morning of your wedding.

I had a large whole salmon (fishmonger arranged to have it cooked) platters of shellfish, salads and bread, veggie quiches. Got complaints from in laws there was no pork pie or "proper food" aka sausage rolls! I made the coleslaw and potato salad the day before, test of salads came ready made or combination of ready made ingredients. My saintly father spent the morning fetching all my presents orders but I did chop cucumber in my wedding dress!

In your situation I printed off lots of sample menu’s from caterers that did weddings and used those ideas to pick out my ideal combo. Once you know what you want it’s really easy to google recipes.
Check out Pinterest for grazing tables, they show how to make simple food look great.