Please share your budget food ideas for weddings!

[blinkowl]

I'm helping one of my oldest friends organise her wedding.

It's a proper shoestring event - loads of love, kids everywhere but not much money to spend!

She's having a garden party in her rural home (massive garden!!).

Obviously catering is a huge cost. Does anyone have any tips on doing this really cheaply?!

She's not at all conventional, so it doesn't have to be anything "weddingy" if that makes sense.

Thanks :)

Hog roast. My BIL did one- a company comes with a giant oven box thingy for the garden and a hog cooks- he then just had loads of buns, potato salad, bbq sauce, coleslaw, stuffing etc.

And some massive cheesecakes for pudding.

Ha, I'm a veggie! She's not, but I'm not recommending hog roast sorry!

Cheesecakes going on the list though.

Outside caterers - shop around and get quotes

Afternoon tea - we paid less than £14 a head

BBQ - steak, burgers, veggie burgers, salt and pepper chicken wings, salad, rolls. Proper professional service. Less than £15 per head.

Wine brought from supermarket (6x bottles have 20% off)

My price per head still came in at less than £32 per person including alcohol for 2 meals and lots of wine!

I would ask half a dozen friends to bring bbqs and then get six men to offer to cook. Get a local butchers to do a deal on sausages and burgers, order buns from Tesco (in store bakery, 12 for £1. I think the six packs are 65p each, two fir a quid), Aldi for ketchup, onions, salad stuff. Make pasta salad, rice salad , potato salad and a bean salad the day before.

If anybody has a Macro ( or similar card) you can buy frozen deserts the day before- big ones that have 12/16 portions. Also, big packs of chicken drumsticks. Oh, and feed people by TABLE. this prevents a scrum at the bbqs. You just need a good production line ( four capable women )
Lots of crisps and tortilla chips.
If you spent £300 (£5ph) you could get a LOT of food. I do catering and th8nk if you want a ‘meal’ as opposed to an afternoon tea this would be the best way! Oh, and paper plates and plenty of rolls of kitchen roll. Pay the kids- with lollies- to go round filling bin bags with the rubbish,
Hope the wedding is wonderful....

shop around and get quotes

Sorry I should have said - she lives in the middle of nowhere!

She was just saying to me on the phone, the population of her area is supposedly 350 people (spread out over miles) but when she hears that, she thinks - ""where? I don't see any people!!"

There just isn't the choice you get in cities / towns.

This is definitely a DIY affair!

Pay the kids- with lollies- to go round filling bin bags with the rubbish

Excellent!

Cold buffet can be done cheaply and lots prepped the day before.

What city is she in? Depending on this there might be Indian caterers nearby that sell huge fresh samosas/pakoras and deliver them to you when still hot. Near me there are loads of places and they charge 25p each, such a bargain. You'd need 1-2 of those per person.

Big bowls of cold salads could be prepped the day before, joints of meat cooked and sliced well in advance, a huge cheeseboard. Go to a supermarket and get all the ready done rotisserie chicken thighs/drumsticks on the day.

Very doable for not much money.

What about a posh picnic in a hamper per table or per a set number of people? That might go nicely with the garden party theme.

I've found a link for some things to include (sorry it is a daily fail link unfortunately)
www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-4345610/amp/How-make-ultimate-posh-picnic.html

What city is she in?

The nearest city is over 50 miles away! Seriously, she's really rural. Nearest neighbours are about 10 minutes down the road

Some great ideas here, thanks everyone! I'm sharing them with my friend :)

A ploughmans lunch each and cheesecakes and gateaux's for pudding

Local scout groups will sometime/often put up their big central tent for a donation (in case of rain), and will often have loads of benches (or collate a load of picnic rugs?) and, as a key option, will often own a really massive barbecue. We do loads of marinated veggie skewers, big flat mushrooms drizzled with marinade, and fish wrapped in tin foil as well as the usual burgers and sausages, when we do a barbecue so it doesn’t have to be mega meat heavy and this can bulk things out a bit too.

Local brewery or two for a barrel, and a massive quantity of cake and you’re looking at some of the happiest gatherings I’ve been to - I really love a casual get together.

(Scouts are usually pretty big in rural areas too, which may make sourcing it vaguely achievable!)

You can do Halloumi, asparagus and sweet corn on the barbie too and it is lush.

My brother and SIL had a cheese wedding cake for their wedding. They bought 4 large rounds of different cheese, stacked them and decorated with grapes. Then they served with bread, lots of chutneys, pickled onions, crisps and salads. It was fab, really easy to prepare, just cutting up bread and emptying salad into bowls (they bought ready made bags of it).
It was filling and everyone enjoyed it. Plus covered vegetarians too.
Plus they didn't have to get a separate wedding cake, they cut the cheese cake!

Borrow as many slow cookers as you can and line them all up on plug extensions. BbQ pulled pork, veggie chilli, chicken curry, beef, turkey. Then mop ups - bread, rice, wraps, flatbreads. All help yourself tasty and filling..