Menu Help?

amazingasian

Okay to start off, we are having a wedding of around 100 people, and our budget is INCREDIBLY tiny. $2500 for all of the wedding. Our reception will not be the fanciest, as it is being held in a normal banquet hall.

We are having a buffet style dinner, and are trying to keep as much cost down as possible. Therefore, we are making the food ourselves (with much help)

Our possible menu:

Meat, Cheese, and Cracker trays as appetizers.

Salad, Rolls included

Entrees:

Meatless Baked Ziti

Baked Ham or Baked Chicken?

Sides:

Mashed Potatoes

Possibly? Fingerling Potatoes

Vegetables:

Corn

Green Beans

Possibly? Glazed Carrots

Please let me know if this seems like an appropriate menu, and if we should include Glazed Carrots, and/or Fingerling Potatoes. Also, if we should have Baked Chicken or Baked Ham!

Cost friendly ideas will be gladly welcomed!

Thanks!

[Deleted User]

ElcaB

I'd seriously simplify here if you are making it yourself. Let's make this much cheaper and easier for you!

Pasta is the budget conscious bride's friend. Why don't you do two lasagnas (one meatless), salad, and rolls? Done and done. Lasagna can be made in advance and frozen until ready to bake, which will relieve a lot of stress, and the ingredients are very cheap. 

Maggie0829

I agree with ElcaB.  I would simplify, simplify, simplify.

Lasagnas are great make ahead and freeze type of meals.  You could do a veggie lasagna, a meat lasagna, a plain cheese lasagna, etc, etc.  You could even make mac and cheese and serve that with some stewed tomatoes if you wanted something that wasn't Italian styled.  Then serve up some salad and rolls and your done.

Catering for 100 people is a lot of work so you want to cut down on how many different types of things you are serving so you aren't running around crazy the days leading up to and on your wedding day.

FYI - if you freeze your lasagnas, make sure to take them out and defrost in the fridge two days prior and then the day of let them warm up to almost room temp before putting into the oven.  Cold, non-baked lasagna takes forever to heat up so by allowing it to come to room temp will cut back on how long it will need to be in the oven.

JaxInBlue

I agree with PPs.  Really streamline if you are doing the cooking yourself.  I think the idea of focusing on a variety of one thing - lasagnas - would be great.  It eliminates some of your preparation work and it eases your set-up because you do not need to be prepping for different types of dishes.

Plus, lasagna is remarkably forgiving even when it sits for a while. 

I'd do:
Appetizers - Cheese/crackers, veggies with dip
Entree - Lasagnas (Veggie, Meat, maybe Cheese), Tossed Salad, Rolls/Bread
(If you have any guests who can't eat gluten, arrange make a smaller tray or lasagna to be made with gluten free noodles or make a suitable number of portions of gluten free pasta that day and serve with sauce)

Just make sure you've accounted for food safety - keep hot foods warm and cold foods cold, and be sure those helping prep the food are conscious of how they handle everything.  You don't want your guests to get sick.  You may want to price out delivery or catering from a BBQ or Italian restaurant.  It could be less expensive and come with a little extra security.                                                                   

MesmrEwe

O.k. first - do some checking around with caterers and local restaurants as you might be able to have a very similar meal for around the same price or LESS as what you're going to spend on all of the ingredients and add-ons (plates/tools/serve-ware/glasses/dishes/paper towels/etc.).  You may even be able to just have them deliver it and you take care of the serving.

Next - consider the cost of the stress you're going to add by having to make food safe for 100 of your nearest and dearest friends (potlucks are the #1 source of food poisoning in the country!), and that you don't want to be working on your wedding day.  REALLY think this over - a grocery store deli/KFC will put a full chicken dinner with all the sides together for 100 for a lot less than your per-person ingredient cost.   It sounds mean, but ask yourself "Who do I want to NOT attend my wedding because I'm going to ask them to WORK?" because while you're getting married someone is in the kitchen heating/preparing all that food if you DIY. 

1) Before you get ahead of yourself on DIY the food, be sure that your reception site will allow you to do this, and secondly use their kitchen to do it!!!  You don't want to have your plans set to go and find out "NO WAY!  Food code and our insurance won't allow us to let you do that!"

2) Cut the appetizers or choose something FAR less expensive!  Cheese and meat trays are actually quite spendy compared to other appetizer choices.  Even making chicken wings in the oven is less because per pound because it gets expensive in a hurry.

2) Ham sandwich meat (those 5# things) can be cut thick at the grocery store deli and put into a Nesco with a bottle of lemon-lime soda - makes a quick, easy, delish ham dinner without the hassle.  It is also far more forgiving than the chicken idea. 

3) If you go the chicken route - make chicken wild rice casserole.  Uncle Bens in the bottom according to the package directions x how many packages you're using, for every 3-4 packages of wild rice use a container of Cream of Mushroom or Cream of Chicken Soup, Bonus points if you use Chicken broth instead of water for the rice.  Put in the nesco or oven until finished (chicken to an internal temp minimum of 165)..  This gives the chicken moisture which will help it avoid being turned into rubberized chicken. 

4) consider pot roast or pulled pork as it's something that you can put in early in the morning the day of the wedding and "forget" about.

atlastmrsg

Another nod to fried chicken.  I had a really nice Southern lunch once out on my farm for a birthday.  Got out the silver, etc.  Made some fantastic sides, but then had my husband go to KFC for 6 buckets of extra crispy.  We put it in antique chafing dishes and served alongside all the homemade food.  Everyone raved about the chicken.  Pretty funny that they were going crazy for extra crispy.  And, it was a lot cheaper and easier for me to buy KFC than spend all morning trying to make chicken at home in tiny batches and keep it hot/crispy.

Kroger is my local grocery at home.  They do lasagna, fried chicken, trays of sides like macaroni and cheese.  Really consider letting a grocery store handle this.  Not only is it surprisingly inexpensive, the food is prepared in (what you hope is) a safe facility, delivered, and set up.  No cat/dog hair in the food or worries that it was stored at the wrong temp.  Not to mention, do you have the fridge and freezer space to prep and store food for 100?  I sure don't.

And nod to PP who noted that a venue may not even allow you to prepare your own food.  Check on this.

And last, did you budget for event insurance?  Many people forget to do this.  Especially if you're serving alcohol.  This protects you if a guest drinks too much, trips, or damages anything at the venue.  Depending on whether it's open bar or not, it'll be somewhere up to $250.  Mine was about $250, but it had a rider for the historic property (had to have higher coverage limit) and there was an open bar.

amazingasian

Thank you so much for all of your input! I will definitely talk it over with my fiance and family.

 As for food safety, I had forgot to mention that I work in the culinary field and am actually certified in the field of sanitation and foodservice safety. That being said, I cannot control all of the people who are coming to help, nor can I control the people who will be heating the food that morning. 

We have already spoken to the venue and they do allow us to home cook the food and bring it in. They also have a kitchen available for us to use. I will need to speak to the venue about event insurance. It's a fairly small community/area that we are having the wedding and most weddings are held in firehalls. Event insurance isn't exactly the most talked about lol. But thanks for the tip!

I am definitely leaning to pasta, but my mother in law is set on chicken and ham. We'll see what the outcome is! ;D

Thank you all again, it definitely gives me something to think about!

JoanE2012

amazingasian said:

Thank you so much for all of your input! I will definitely talk it over with my fiance and family.

 As for food safety, I had forgot to mention that I work in the culinary field and am actually certified in the field of sanitation and foodservice safety. That being said, I cannot control all of the people who are coming to help, nor can I control the people who will be heating the food that morning. 

We have already spoken to the venue and they do allow us to home cook the food and bring it in. They also have a kitchen available for us to use. I will need to speak to the venue about event insurance. It's a fairly small community/area that we are having the wedding and most weddings are held in firehalls. Event insurance isn't exactly the most talked about lol. But thanks for the tip!

I am definitely leaning to pasta, but my mother in law is set on chicken and ham. We'll see what the outcome is! ;D

Thank you all again, it definitely gives me something to think about!

Who's paying?