The Crunch ~ DIY Catering

Catering for Weddings can add immence costs to the wedding and is probably your greatest expence altogether. At a typical hotel you will be looking at costs of at the very least £22 per head. This will also be subject to other costs for drinks, corkage, napkin hire etc. There may also be the problem of limitations as far as supplying your own drinks, chocolate fountains etc as the hotels like to use their own supplies etc.

One way of cutting down on this expense is to self cater. If you are lucky enough to find a local hall that will accomodate your guest numbers then you have several options. you can hire a team of caterers to provide a buffet or you can go to sainsburies, marks and Spencer or other local supermarkets and purchase their buffet catering platters. Many halls have crockery available to hire.

The pictures illustrating this article are from the Sainsburys range of Deli platter catering.

These platters come set out with garnishes and are incredibly impressive. There are a full range of vegetarian/ standard food ideas including world snacks, sushi, passtries, meats, salads and sandwiches.

They will look great set out on a buffet table.

Sainsburys also have a free glass hire service at many of their stores, which will go someway to providing all you need. You can then source your drinks from wherever you want and you could even use boxes of wine which can then be used to fill caraf's for the tables.

This example of a pims fountain (above) is from Michele of Tempting Propositions. and shows a great example of money saving. Rather then the real "Pimms" (alcholic beverage served with fruit and lemonade as a summer drink) which retails at approx £13.00 per bottle. michele purchased the Aldi version called "Austins" which retails at under £5.00 per bottle. this allows you to serve the sophistication with out the sophisticated cost!

Here we can see Michele and her husband cutting their "cake" which rther than the traditional wedding cake, they chose to have a cheese cake which was created for them by a friend.

The cheese cakes were displayed as a wedding cake and then served out as the desert. (there were another three behind the scenes so there was plenty for everyone.

I'm sure there are many more Crunch busting tips for wedding catering and I'll share those with you as I discover them.