How to cater your own wedding on a budget

It's not for everyone but, with budgets squeezed, could you cook at your own wedding to keep costs low?

Cooking for a large group of people is not easy, and the idea of cooking at your own wedding might put a lot of people off. If you don't feel comfortable doing it, that's completely fair enough! You can still keep spending down by choosing to serve food like a hog roast or even hire a street food van. Non-traditional? Yes, but a lot more reasonably priced than a three-course meal in a swanky hotel.

If you choose dishes you can prepare in advance, you might be able to at least contribute canapés and snacks to keep things cheaper, rather than hiring a professional to do everything. You might want to rope in some friends (and your partner) to help you prepare.

If you do want to do it all yourself, we've tried to suggest recipes that will keep costs down where possible and, crucially, are easy to prepare in advance. You might not think they're the most romantic, but people (including you!) will be hungry when they get to the reception and probably won't be too bothered by what's on their plate so long as it's tasty and filling.

Just remember, don't overcommit and get stressed out on your big day! Consider your options carefully and make things well ahead of time wherever possible.

Rather than taking on the challenge entirely on your own, you could ask friends to bring a plate of food each to share at the wedding instead of bringing gifts, for example salads or desserts or cheese.

Canapés

Canapés can be really simple to make, and if you want you could even serve a range of them en masse in lieu of a proper meal. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Apricot and stilton canapés

You can make these the day before and store them, wrapped, in a fridge to serve cool (or have them warmed up) at your reception. Just five ingredients are needed to make these. However, an extra pair of hands to add the filling to all 45 canapés will be a great help, as it's a bit of a dull task.

Feta pastry cigars

You can fill these pastry 'cigars' with meat, cheese and spinach or just cheese, but for the sake of keeping things simple and cost-effective, feta on its own with a little dried mint saves you worrying about extra cooking. They definitely give the 'wow' factor to a spread and the ingredients are still cheap.

Sausage rolls

You might want something a little more... refined for a wedding. But sausage rolls are a finger food favourite, no matter what the occasion, and if you use a posh sausage like chorizo as the filling, you can make some really special snacks. Don't worry about making your own pastry, shop-bought is fine and will save you so much time.

Onion bhajis

Bhajis do present a slight logistical problem in that you'll need to deep fry them fairly close to serving time or they'll get cold and soggy. If you roll up your balls a couple of days in advance (without cooking them), you can wrap and refrigerate them then heat them up on the day. Then you just need to find a willing volunteer to heat them up for you.

Starter

The best option here, in our opinion, is soup. It's easy to make in large quantities, although you might need to hire yourself a large receptacle to transport it in and dispense it from. 

Melon soup with aniseed and goat's cheese

Heating up soup might be more of a problem than preparing it, but with this one you don't even need to worry about that – though a bag of ice cubes is a must as it's served cold!

You might want to skip the goat's cheese cream for reasons of budget and ease, but the melon and aniseed mixture will taste fine on its own. Perhaps mix in some double cream even if you eschew the cheese for a better texture.

Main course

If you're going to do the mains yourself, you want something that ideally doesn't need to be pre-plated – something that people can grab from a buffet table is ideal. And it shouldn't require a lot of effort either, as you'll be too busy in the days leading up the big day to create something marvellous. Just go for 'tasty', not 'jaw-dropping', and you should be fine.

Shepherd's pie dauphinois

Mary Berry offers a slightly different take on a firm favourite all the family loves. She uses a layer of dauphinois potatoes and that gives this a classier edge which would suit a wedding. It's also easy to include as part of a buffet and let people help themselves.

Chicken and chickpea curry

Definitely budget friendly. Use thigh fillets instead of breast if you will, but the fact that this curry largely consists of chickpeas means that you'll get a lot of people full for very little cash. Make a huge pot of this, and you could cook off enough naan bread and rice for everyone to share and then people can help themselves. Vegetarians can omit the chicken and add extra vegetables of their choice.

Vegetarian red bean chilli

One to please the veggies in the wedding party, packed full of vibrant red kidney beans and something you can easily heat up on the day. You could serve with sour cream, guacamole, grated cheese (Cheddar will be fine) and a generous helping of tortillas or breads.

Curried sausages and spinach

While this is a curry, it's a very mild one, and recipe author Anjum Anand says it's perfect for children if you're inviting little 'uns. If you don't like spinach, you could swap it for another veg such as broccoli or even peas.

Dessert

Again, having a recipe that you can bulk produce is going to really help you out here, although you might want to scrap dessert altogether and just have wedding cake on its own. If that's the case and you also want to create your own cake, we've got a guide on how to do just that from professional wedding cake baker Zoe Clark.

Chocolate mousse

Mousse is an excellent choice for dessert when catering for a large group, as it's served cold and doesn't take an awfully long time to make. You'll need loads of eggs at the ready and plenty of good quality dark chocolate. Serve it either from a large serving bowl where people can help themselves (could get messy) or in little individual cups or bowls.

Ginger yoghurt scones

You could make regular scones and have a cream tea on the go, with tubs of clotted cream and jams. That would work well, and be fairly economical to boot. If you want to push the boat out a little bit more, these scones are made with ginger yoghurt, and filled with whipped cream and cherry jam.

Have you catered your own wedding? Do you have any top tips? Or is it just too much extra stress? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments below.

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