<3 Meg.

There is no rule that you need to feed your wedding guests dinner, as long as you schedule the reception for the right time of day. Self catering becomes a lot more do-able the less you have to cook, especially if you're catering for a large crowd.

My dad and my uncle baked 10 cakes for our wedding and they were delicious.

I self-catered our wedding for fifty people because finances dictated it was that or nothing. I love cooking and I'm really good at it, and the food was wonderful (my sister bought us a wedding cake- I made everything else), but still. If I had it to do over again, I don't know that I would. I was SO stressed out and tired.

For the curious, the menu was:

Green apple bellinis
Large baked ham
mini-biscuits
Roasted beet salad (Ina Garten's recipe)
French Potato salad (also Ina Garten)
boccocini/antipasti
catfish pate
Fried chicken

Wedding Cake: buttercream pound cake with amaretto filling

And after all that, I barely ate any of it because I was so wound up. Figures. :P

I love APW!
In Pittsburgh, it's common practice for many members of the family to donate cookie platters at weddings. This is a sort of "cater your own tradition.

I'm hardly ever the grammar Nazi but it should be "Advice for Self-Catering Your Wedding" - the own isn't necessary!

My husband and I also catered our wedding, and I would affirm much of the advice given in this post.

Like Marie-Ève we provided an appetizer buffet, because much of the food could be made ahead of time. Around 150 people attended the reception, and there was plenty of food left over!

The menu:
-marinated roasted peppers
-marinated olives
-marinated mushrooms
-three kinds of artisan bread
-three kinds of cheese
-cocktail meatballs
-reuben dip
-tomato, mozzarella, and basil pasta salad
-lebanese potato salad
-hummus
-basil cheese dip
-gougeres
-pork apple turnovers
-sliced peaches with blueberries
-cupcakes

First of all, we outsourced foods that would have had to be prepared at the last minute. I had horrific visions of myself frosting cupcakes at 3:00 am the morning of the wedding! So bread and cupcakes were both purchased from local bakeries.

Secondly, all the marinated items were prepared between a few days and one week before the wedding. In addition, the gougeres and turnovers were made and frozen at least one week ahead of time.

Third, we had lots of help! I would never have attempted such an undertaking without the support or family and friends. A good friend--who also happens to be an excellent cook--came out nearly a week before the wedding. She and I worked together most of the time, but by the day or two before the wedding, she was overseeing the whole operation. My mother and grandmother harvested, cut up, and froze all of the peaches and blueberries. One of my cousins spent hours slicing the cheeses.

Would I do it again? Absolutely! We were able to have foods that we never would have been able to afford with a caterer, and the buffet was a hit with all our guests. But it was crucial that we had so much help and were able to make so many of the dishes ahead of time.

I think it's a lovely idea, if you're prepared! My cousin self catered her wedding (about 50 people), and it was a disaster. They were planning to do all the major work themselves, but she asked in advance if my husband and I could help out "just a little here or there". We agreed but when we showed up the couple was quite unprepared. (They did have spreadsheets, actually, but that wasn't enough!) They had made the main courses assembled but things like salad, rolls, etc were still in packages 20 minutes before guests were arriving. Liquor was still in cases ready to be unpacked, and one of the friends they said would be helping quite a bit failed to show up until halfway through the event. Of course, my cousin and her new husband started talking to guests and just couldn't do all the food too. The event was held in a party room at their condo, and the room was poorly equipped so we had to keep taking the elevator up 25 floors to get kitchen items. Then they underestimated how long it would take to cook the lasagnas they assembled, and they miscalculated the amount of oven space available in the party room, so my husband and I were rotating pans and carrying hot trays of food in the elevators. It was ridiculous. Many guests were angry that dinner was quite late, and people actually yelled at my husband and I thinking we were caterers or something! (Yes, the groom's family was pretty rude and ungrateful.) My husband even missed most of the ceremony because he had to run upstairs to get something out of the oven before it burned. We both have food service experience and probably would have been happy to do this, but we didn't come prepared (I was wearing a nice dress and heels!) and didn't have all the details about what needed to happen and when, so we had to make it all up as we went along. My cousin should have been more realistic about how much help they needed (no one wants to spend their entire wedding cooking) and should have outlined the plan in detail to us.

So based on this experience, my advice would be to decide how much work you want to do on your own day--if you want to enjoy your guests at all plan to enlist lots of help. And choose helpers carefully. They might not get to enjoy much of the wedding if there's a lot to do, so poor choices might be a relative who'll want to talk to everyone who comes or your friend who tends to get distracted easily. Make sure all helpers have a copy of exactly what dishes are being served (heating instructions, serving pieces to be used, where to be placed for serving, etc) and what specific role they will play. If you can assign a manager/coordinator to oversee everything on that day so you can relax, even better. Ask people to come earlier than you think you need--last minute stuff comes up and you don't want to be rushing. If you don't have catering/food experience, run your plans by people who do if possible, to make sure you're estimating enough food, plates, drinks, etc. (My cousin had about 5 times more food than needed but about 1/2 the amount of silverware!) Check out the space in advance so you know for sure where all the food can go and what you might need to bring. And finally, make sure you sincerely and effusively thank your helpers! A thoughtful gift would be much appreciated, too, I can assure you. ;)

i catered my wedding, we had 50 guests. my sister made a giant tiramisu for our cake, it was fabulous. i agree with all the rules above, but the most important one is:

#1 Organization: i had spreadsheets for my spreadsheets! costing spreadsheets, quantity spreadsheets, actual cooking spreadsheets...it went on and on. they were worth many times their weight in gold.

#2 Serve Food You'd Want to Eat! My 2 main courses were "warming tray friendly." braised short ribs in red wine LOVE warming trays, and are easy to make ahead of time. Stuffed shells can work as long as you make sure those puppies are well sauced, which I did, and they were delicious.

#3 Hire Out the Grunt Work! I hired a caterer who was willing to come in on event day and warm up all the food and set up the buffet, put out the appetizers, pour the champagne, etc. He also brought 2 ladies to bus the tables. This only cost me $200. Even if you get a reliable friend to do this, it is well worth it to have the details taken care of by someone else.

#4 Trial Run: I made a smaller version of my buffet dinner for the future hubs and I to test out my recipe and the sourced ingredients. I also froze half of it to make sure that freezing for 1 week would not affect taste or texture. I actually made my 2 main courses the weekend before the wedding, wrapped them very very well and froze them for 1 week.

To sum up: organize your thoughts and tasks. Hire out the day of prep and setup. Use recipes that you are comfortable and experienced making, and choose ones that can withstand buffet style serving. Do a test of recipes to make sure there is no guess work for the main event.

I would love to cater my wedding as I love to cook and entertain, but we're already doing our own flowers (thanks for your APW post on that one Meg! I've had it bookmarked for a year), and I had to draw the line somewhere! Great tips though!

I catered my own wedding last year and really didnt find it nearly as stressful as most people had told me it would be. I was lucky enough to not have to work the week before so I had days to get ready. Our reception was a late lunch so I took my inspiration from afternoon tea. I made a dozen different flavors of biscotti, shortbread and Madeleine's for treats and favors. I also made three carrot cakes for the wedding cake but drew the line at tiring them.
I think the fact that every thing was made ahead of time and assembled on location was a huge help. It was also necessary because the reception was in a barn with no kitchen.
The menu was very simple- sandwiches, soup and salad. I deligated a few things (smoking the turkey, making clam chowder) but mostly I did it all with very little help. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was the highlight of the day.

We catered our own wedding. Parts of it were awesome and parts not-so-awesome. Dessert was fantastic- we asked a handful of friends to bake pies (whatever their specialty) but once the pie buffet word got out, we were overwhelmed with pies from way more than our original group of piemakers. I'm of the thinking that more pie is never a problem.

My best friend's dad generously offered to roast a pig and make palaak paneer for our vegetarian friends. This was an absolute hit.

Another close friend offered to make cole slaw. Another hit.

My husband, mother, uncle, and myself and a friend spent about 10 hours two days before the wedding making tons of pasta salad and corn bread in our small, hot apartment. The friend who made the pasta salad stayed up that night until about 4 am finishing everything up. The result? We totally overestimated how much pasta salad and corn bread people would eat and had what felt like most of it left over. But, we were able to donate it to a homeless shelter, so everything worked out in the end.

We fed 150 for ridiculously cheap and the food was GOOD. I would recommend getting people you know and trust to deal with getting the food out to your guests, whether it's setting it up in a buffet or serving it to people. We were a little short-staffed on that end, and we had to hustle with our wedding party in tow to the reception venue to make sure all the food was ready to go for dinner. It wasn't the most pleasurable hour! Also, if you choose a buffet-style approach, make sure that someone is assigned to refilling serving trays/platters/etc. as they empty.

Was I more preoccupied with the food and whether people were enjoying it than I would have been if I hadn't had a hand in it? Sure. Am I still glad that we catered the wedding ourselves? Absolutely.

Also: food safety, food safety, food safety!!

i had initially hoped to self-cater our wedding but am glad i was talked out of it. instead i baked my heart out -- 42 dozen homemade cookies that guests took with them as favors & 10 flavors of layer cakes arranged on mismatched plates. the things i ended up doing allowed me to convey my love for cooking and for our guests without making the wedding experience super-stressful. in the end we got one of our favorite local cajun restaurants to cater. not only did we get to share something we love with our people, but they got to try food they might never have before.

I've never catered a wedding, but I have done an elaborate wedding cake for a friend and an extensive menu for my sister's shower. My suggestions are to use the freezer and your family/friends as much as possible. Chances are you'll have a trusted group of people that are willing and capable of helping, and they will prove to be invaluable. Also, try to do everything as far in advance as possible. Lots of things freeze well, which means you can make them months ahead of time. Finally, don't be afraid to supplement your menu with items from your favorite grocery store, bakery, restaruant, etc. As long as everything is of good quality doesn't have to be all from scratch.

I would probably start planning at least 6 months in advance (more if you have other DIY projects to work on for the wedding) with a spreadsheet and a timeline to keep track of where everything is coming from and when it can be prepared.

We self-catered our wedding... for 200 people. All vegetarian. Outside. In September.

It sounds manic, but holding everything outside really opened up our options to keep things more casual and sane. With the help of parents and sisters, we managed not to give anyone food poisoning and no one got completely killed by hours of cooking.

I helped a friend self-cater her wedding and we got spiral-sliced hams and turkeys (all fully cooked) from a local market. Various relatives volunteered to make side dishes, so we designed a menu and handed out recipes, that meant everything was made roughly the same and in bulk (there were half a dozen sides plus biscuits and chutneys & mustards for the ham & turkey). Everyone volunteered their all-white platters, we taped their names on the bottoms to ensure they were returned, and bought surplus glasses & silverware at a cookware importer (those are now stored for other big parties in the same social circle). I made the cake as my wedding gift. Two family members did the photography. The favors were homemade cookies - the groom's favorite and the bride's favorite. Her father bought the liquor. We made lemonade from lemons harvested in family gardens. And everyone volunteered quilts and rocking chairs (for the elders) so we could sit and picnic under trees on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. The only flowers we bought were daisies but we bought them in abundance, since they're her favorite, plus some yellow grosgrain ribbon. It was one of my favorite weddings ever and cost <$500 including the bridal gown (a formal gown I found for $35, brand new, never worn). So take that Martha Stewart & Vera Wang! "Community" weddings really are the best in my book.

@SHADYLANE:

http://goo.gl/5Er5e