How much, and how to do it? (XP on budget weddings)

DarlinPenguin

So, the FI and I are on a strict budget for our wedding, $1,500 dollars, with 50 guests attending... and part of having that small of a budget means that we cannot hire a caterer. We are asking members of our family to make our favorite dishes from childhood in bulk, and a friend of ours that is a culinary arts major, is cooking the meat. Its all going to be very simple comfort food -BBQ pork loin and chicken drumsticks,home made macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. It will all be set up buffet style, and people will be free to serve themselves. I'm not worried about that all being tacky, as our guestlist consists only of our closest friends and family.

The questions that I have, are firstly- I'm trying to figure out how much food to tell people to make. I have not been able to find anything on the internet that says how many pounds of meat to allow per person, or how many people a bag of potatoes will feed, etc. Does anyone have any ideas? 

Secondly- what is the best option for keeping the food warm? The site has an oven, but it wont hold everything...

Third- Who should set up these dishes/keep them stocked? The friend that is the culinary student is also FI's best man, so he can't be running back and forth. I want to honor our parents as much as possible, so I don't want to have them running to the kitchen and back, instead of enjoying the reception. 

I'm almost tempted to put an ad on Craigslist, seeing if anyone wants to get a free meal, and help out with the filling and refilling for 50 dollars. There are TONS of poor college students in our town, so I'm sure that finding someone that wanted to make 50 bucks for an hour's worth of work wouldn't be hard.  If I go that route, how far in advance should I start looking? It would be just my luck to have someone lined up now, but in April. that person disapear. 

brides-mother

Have the BM post a note on his culiany school's bulletin board.  There are always students looking to pick u[ a free lance job.  And at least the culianry studfents would know about safe fgood handling.

DarlinPenguin

That's a good idea brides-mother!

And no worries everyone, firstly, each member that we are asking to cook is only going to be making one dish each, for instance, his mother is making the macaroni and cheese, and my mother is making the mashed potatoes, and the friend is doing the meat. Doing everything would be too much for just one person. 

NOLAbridealmost

Oh boy. 

I strongly, strongly recommend hiring a caterer. It's just too logistically crazy trying to DIY  For 50 guests it might be possible to book a private room at a restaurant for a lot less than a traditional catering hall/venue

031107

We had our rehearsal dinner at Buca di' Beppo.  It was great!  Maybe look into something like this.  Their food is family served family style.  For 20-22 people (can't remember) we paid about $600-650.  That included alcohol too.

I looked up their menu online about.  Wrote down want I wanted and how many of each dish, then dropped off my list about a month before the dinner.  That way we didn't have to waste time looking at the menu, ordering...The food was ready as soon as we got there.
 
This time of year they usually offer a deal where you buy $100 in gift cards and you get $25 for free.  The website said you could only use 1 $25 gift card at a time since that was "free" money but I called, explained I was bringing 20 people and the manager let me use all the "free" money gift cards.  That will help stretch your budget some.
 
This also eliminates the cost of a DJ, reduces florist cost (you won't have to decorate the reception site), could eliminate bakery cost (could just order dessert from the restaurant) and you could call people to invite them to save money on invitations and save the dates.

MidnightMare

I only paid 8.50 pp for 3 different meal options, bread, butter, and 2 salads, and that included a person to work it. Look into small resturants. Ours was my favorite, tiny, inexpensive pizza place.