Wedding Reception Food Ideas on a Budget

Your wedding reception can be costly and has the potential to blow your budget.. Of course, this depends on what type of food you want to serve and also how many guests you will have attending. You don't have to follow tradition or you can combine tradition with a new twist of your own. Following are some suggestions for having a memorable wedding reception and staying within your budget.

For Early Afternoon Weddings

Desserts - a dessert buffet works great for an early afternoon wedding reception. You can serve an assortment of desserts including pastries, cookies, candies, small cakes, truffles, along with coffee and punch. You may have friends or relatives who love to bake and could offer their delicious treats.

Outdoors - for a summer wedding an outdoor reception can work well. You could have a picnic in a park or even a BBQ in your own back yard. For a picnic you could include the traditional picnic foods such as salads, fried chicken, corn on the cob, green beans, rolls and also some inexpensive desserts and a couple varieties of drinks. For a BBQ, the options are plentiful from steaks to chicken and kabobs. This will of course depend on your budget.

Tea party - a tea party is perfect for an afternoon. It fits well within most budgets. You could include a variety of teas, coffee and maybe champagne for drinks. For food you could have small cakes, tarts, finger sandwiches and toasted panini.

For Evening Weddings

Buffet - a buffet can work well and there's a variety of food to suit most everyone's taste. You could include soup, rice, potatoes, a variety of pasta, a variety of bread, an assortment of vegetables or salad, along with sliced turkey, cabbage rolls or roasted chicken and some simple desserts. A buffet with this large of a variety may be more expensive, but still within a reasonable budget if you are having a lot of guests.

Keeping it simple - if you don't want to spend as much as you would for a buffet, you can keep it simple by offering a variety of sliced meats and a variety of cheese. Include an assortment of bread and crackers and also fruits such as strawberries, grapes, sliced apples with dip. You could add some side salads and of course drinks.

Cocktails - an evening wedding would do fine with a cocktail wedding reception. You could serve non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks along with garnishes. Light foods such as raw vegetables and dip, a variety of nuts, chips and salsa and cheese and crackers and cocktail wieners would would well.

You may choose to have your wedding reception catered and this will lessen the pressure. But, if you have friends or family members who will help out, this can greatly lesson both the expense and pressure. Fruit, meat and cheese trays can be purchased at quality delis, which would save you time and effort.

Do your homework and check around to see what and who is available before spending a fortune. Your wedding day should be memorable, but not in a way that every time you go to the mail box you're getting a bill 10 years after you said "I do".