Food Ideas? Under $500 For 98 Guests

If you can`t afford a professional caterer, do you have any friends/relatives/aquaintances who would be happy to cater? My fiance and I are lucky enough to have a few friends who have catered for weddings, special occasion dinners etc and have said they can do a three course meal for $5 (Australian- approx $US2.50) a head!
If you can do things this way it`s alot cheaper than having it professionally catered and we know they will do a great job! It`s also a good way of including them in the whole day.
Otherwise, what about finger food cocktail party style? A lot of the work can be done in advance and frozen, or just put in the oven to heat.
Hope that helps! :)

Maybe some of this will bust your budget but I hope it helps:

We did an extravagant new year`s party which we self catered. Here are some of the things we made ahead and froze:

- quiche - good, filling, freezes well

- ice cream parfaits-- vanilla ice cream with creme de menthe poured over -- very chic.

- a dessert bar is very nice and inexpensive. Bake cakes ahead of time and employ the help of friends. You can bake cookies and stick them in the freezer. Lay out desserts around the wedding cake area.

-- we always roast a big turkey the night before the party. You can carve it up and serve it cold with cranberry sauce.

-- Grilled veggies look elegant and taste great


We also bought mini pumpernickel breads, smeared them with cream cheese and topped with salmon (bought at price club) or olives

Crudiettes always look elegant and you can buy a platter already put together.

An assortment of cheeses on a platter is also elegant (buy in bulk at bulk food market!) garnish with grapes.


For Alcohol:
Cutting costs on the bar:

My mother always had the best way for keeping liquor consumption down. She always stocked up on ALOT of soda before a party. All different flavors. She would scan the flyers for the sales and stock up. People are often very happy with just soda. Add flavored ice tea (mint tea or peach tea make very nice refreshing cold drinks) to the bar.

Wine Doctor:
A friend of mine taught me this trick. To be able to serve wine or champagne at her parties but not bust her budget, a friend of mine orders a case of the cheapest wine or champagne she can find. Then she puts frozen raspberries in each wine glass and fills. She leaves the wine out on display. It looks very pretty with the floating raspberries which defrost in the wine while keeping the white wine or champagne cool. The fruit also adds more complexity to the budget wine.

For a small but really nice hard alcohol display:
Spruce up cheap vodka for the bar. I put dried apricots or fresh cherries or fresh raspberries in a glass liquor container (you can find decanters for about $1 at garage sales or borrow from friends. Just fill about 1/8 or less of the bottle with fruit and fill rest of container with vodka. Its really beautiful in a glass container and can spruce up cheaper alcohol. A really nice one is to put fresh vanilla beans and pineapple chunks into a glass decantor and fill with rum. You should marinate fruit in alcohol for about 2 weeks minimum. You can save a lot of $$ on alcohol by just having 2 or 3 pretty hard alcohols that you doctor a bit with fruit.

Becca,
There are alot of things you could do for $500.00 and still have the wedding of your dreams. Finger food can be expensive, so be careful of buying them already prepared and all you have to do is bake/heat them up, usually the taste is just not good. Think of your guests and what do they all have in common, is it Italian food, Greek, German ect. Cooking Italian is very reasonable. Maybe choose a theme wedding and take it from there. Ask family members for some of their receipes, who knows maybe they will volunteer to help! If they do say YES! Some day you could pay the favor back. Good Luck
Shelley

You could make wrap sandwiches. They can be made the day before. You take flat breads and put a small amount of cream cheese over the wrap then you put different kinds of fillings about 3/4 of the way on the wrap. You roll from the full end out leaving 1/4 of wrap with just cream cheese. This end, the 1/4 cream cheese end will make the wrap stick together. You then wrap these in a saran wrap and refridgerate. The next day you only need to slice and serve.

People are also into teas these days. Tea sandwiches. Egg salad, tuna salad, Chicken salad, cucumber (sliced very thin) sandwiches, ham sandwiches. The trick is to have very fresh bread. You could get white bread and wheat bread. Make them three slices high with different color bread. Two white, one wheat. Put different filling in them. Egg salad, Chicken salad can be made a couple of days before. Cucumbers could be sliced day before. Assemble that morning. Cut sandwiches in an X so you end up with 4 pieces per sandwich. Sandwiches should be buttered so they don`t get soggy.

Best Wishes

Since your summer wedding is at the groom`s parents house - I suggest a potluck style reception. Ask family members to bring covered dishes. Define who will bring what so that you have a defined menu. Spend your $500.00 on meats or the main dish. Trust me, they won`t mind -they`ll be delighted to help.

As for the roses -I`d say, skip it. You`re getting married at a time of year when you can find all of the colorful flowers you`ll need - probably in your back yard. Keep it simple and sweet with wildflowers, daises, and herbs.

Congratulations and good luck!

Thank you all, for your wonderful suggestions. We decided that we would have a reception of desserts!!!!

Chocolates, cookies, pies, cakes, tarts, fruit, jello salads, and of course the wedding cake. That way, we can bake and freeze most things ahead of time. We`ll all just need to run a marathon, to work it off the next day!!!

Dear OHampson, I like your ideas for tea sandwiches, but how do you cut sandwiches into an X shape? Any method you know to have less left over bread would be cool. Thanks. Christian