Weddingbee Blog

I’m not sure I’ve said much about our decision to fire our caterer and go at this ourselves.

When we got engaged, we knew one thing for sure. The rehearsal dinner and reception would be done by Mr. CC’s favorite restaurant. We (read: he) eats there at least once a week. The food is good (most of the time, I’ve had a few things I don’t care for) and the prices are totally reasonable for lunch. The atmosphere is spectacular. The restaurant is in the bottom of an old hotel. The very same hotel that John Wilkes Booth was shot in the 1850s (before that Ford’s Theater disaster). It’s covered in historic memorabilia and knick-knacks. I think I might like this place for its decor more than for its food.

Anyway, once we had compiled most of our guest list, we went straight down to chat about rehearsal dinner and reception options. We knew at this point that we wanted an evening reception (no dinner, and therefore cheaper, right?) with heavy-ish hors d’oeuvres. We picked out a menu (I can’t remember what it was, that was a long time ago) and went back for pricing. And our jaws hit the floor. This particular establishment wanted $20 per person for hors d’oeuvres. I was shocked and dismayed. Especially when I multiplied that number by the amount of people I was assuming would be coming to the wedding (200). I just couldn’t fathom paying that much money for freaking snacks.

(Can you tell I’ve never hired a caterer before? I should have been warned!) A few months went by. We paid deposits for both the reception and the rehearsal dinner. But I was still terribly uncomfortable with the amount of money we were going to be spending on food. I desperately wanted to keep the costs of this thing down, and I couldn’t see how this (hiring a caterer) was keeping costs down.

Sometime in the fall, during a conversation with my stepmom, she said, “I wish we lived closer; I’d just cater it for you.” Done. I made a few phone calls, mainly one to my mom, seeing if she would allow my stepmom into her kitchen. Then I called my stepmom back. I told her I wanted her to take care of the food. We would choose things that could be cooked up ahead of time, in large batches, and there would be help here for her when she arrived. She was ecstatic to get to help in such a huge way, and I was happy that we could fire the caterer.

And we did (fire the caterer, that is), although, not so much. We are still having our rehearsal dinner there. We were able to apply our reception deposit to our rehearsal dinner. Mr. CC still gets his restaurant and I didn’t have to shell out 4000 big ones for food.

Unfortunately, it opened up a few new cans of worms. Namely, linens, dishes, glasses, serving dishes, servers, and non-alcoholic beverages. We will cover all of these shortly.

Even though firing our caterer forced me into a lot of new decisions I didn’t really want to deal with, I’m still glad we did it. I’m really excited to be serving up home cooked snacks to our guests. We’re going for traditionally Southern foods (things like deviled eggs, cheese straws, pigs in a blanket (except more elegant), cornbread cups, and meatballs).

How did you cut your food costs?