BBQ at a wedding.....too tacky and cheap???

[Janeymoo50]

my wedding is booked for 3pm on a Sat afternoon. Tight budget (about 6K all in), roughly 45-50 guests for the whole day. Ceremony at 3pm, informal photos only, then a cream tea with cake, scone and cream, couple of small speeches. Guests will have a drink served straight after the ceremony and there'll be tea/coffee and more fizz with the tea. Then we're having a BBQ as the main food about 7pm. Not having wedding cake but hoping to do either a Krispy Kreme donut cake or some large pavlovas with fruit for pud. A couple of people have "made a face" when I mentioned BBQ???? Would any of you feel it was a bit tacky??

I'm planning to have a BBQ next year for my wedding and don't think it's too tacky.
Can I ask you where are you having it? Is it someone's garden or some public park? Or did you get a venue with outside seating area?

Sounds great. I wanted one but venue couldn't help.
My main concern would be bad weather plan.
I got married in July and although dry it was very cool and too cold to hang around outside.

Great idea.

Go to your local catering college and get a couple of them to work for you for the day, serving and keeping it all tidy, salads replenished etc.

I went to one last week, it was more like a garden fete than bbq. Different food stations offering different choices which avoided the buffet line. It was very laid back but so where the guests. Lovely day.

Not at all. I'd love that.

The good thing about it being your wedding, is that you get to choose how you want it it be. If you want a BBQ have one. There will always be people who would have done it differently. FWIW, I went to a very similar wedding last week, except they had fish and chips, from a van in the evening, after the cream tea bit. It was lovely!

I'd love it! Just make sure there's plenty of everything including seating :)

Sounds like a great laugh. My only worry would be the weather.

We had a bbq at our wedding and it was great. We hired tables, chairs and crockery. We had great big dishes of different salads - mustard & dill potatoes, tomato salad, green salad, coleslaw, mixed beans etc., and cooked rib roast, pork loin, salmon, chicken & scallops on the bbq. Not a sausage or burger in sight!! Even the sceptical and bbq-hating guests all said they enjoyed it.

It'S a small venue, the ceremony is in a windmill and the adjoining barn is the venue, so nice outdoor area too with picnic tables, benches etc. the Tea is the sit down bit, so to speak, with pretty China and cake stands, the BBQ is semi "posh", so floury rolls, hot buttered potatoes and two salads along with deceny sausages, burgers and chicken breasts (and halloumi cheese/pepper kebabs for veggies). Thanks for your kind responses, feel better now....finally getting we'd at the ripe old age of 50!!!

Sounds like fun. I love all kinds of weddings, posh, simple, big or small - if you like the person it's all good! Be boring if they were all the same. Congratulations and have a great day!

my sister had one i loved it, i hate all the fairy princess weddings that you know are still being paid for after the divorce

I went to a wedding with a BBQ a few years ago, the food was lovely and everyone enjoyed it, it was a lot more jovial than sit down meals I have been to and felt more relaxed. However my experience was much like BoyScouts- it took ages to get everyone through, we were the last table up and the first few tables had finished eating theirs and were eyeing up the puddings (which had mostly gone by the time our table got there). The food was also rather sparse, but perhaps they had given too much to the first few tables and there wasn't much left for us.

Go with the BBQ OP it it a lovely idea, but see if you can make the food distribution a little quicker than we had.

A couple of people have "made a face" when I mentioned BBQ

They're idiots. Ignore. Or hope they don't turn up. BBQs at weddings are lovely.

Sounds fab just make sure there is decent seating and plates and people are served as quick as can be managed.

People pulling faces are probably thinking paper plates and standing up in a cramped garden!

Cream teas and a good quality BBQ sounds lovely If it was standard sausages and burgers I'd say no, but if you get extrememly good ones, with say some paninis, ciabattas, speciality bread, marinated fish and chicken, very good salads, and offer some high quality condiments/relishes it would be brilliant. I'm not a fan of bog standard BBQs at all though.

Not floury rolls you cant eat them without flour going everywhere.

I was at an all outdoor wedding at the weekend. It was great, but... we hadn't been told it would be outside so we hadn't brought warm wraps or jackets and it was freezing!
So please please please make sure everyone knows to bring appropriate clothing, and make sure the venue has plenty patio heaters.
But to answer your question, your bbq and whole wedding sounds fab!

A BBQ sounds lovely. And there were some great suggestions about practical issues from other MNers, too.

Have you thought about possibly adding a jacket potato bar to the BBQ? That would suit vegetarians and let people eat if the BBQ queue (arf) is long.

Oh no, not patio heaters! They eat power, don't they? Terrible for the environment. And expensive, surely.

Just make sure people know it's outside.

I've been to 2 weddings with BBQs they were both great .

Ooh sounds like my kind of wedding!!

I'm not a fan of BBQ, never seems to be enough food and it takes ages to be cooked plus if your particular burger or chicken wasn't very nice then you've got to go and faff around waiting for another to be cooked.

I hate all the fairy princess weddings that you know are still being paid for after the divorce

^^ I counted up how many weddings I had been to and how many ended in divorce - sadly more than half. - including my own first wedding but at least it wasn't a big, expensive one .

A BBQ sounds lovely - a hundred times better than a prawn cocktail and rubber chicken.