Ask anyone what makes a celebration fantastic, and they won’t hesitate: it’s the food! The key component to a top-notch celebration is a thoughtful and tasty menu.
Can’t afford a Michelin-inspired 9-course meal for your wedding reception?
You don’t need to. We’ve got the secret sauce—a smorgasbord of mouthwatering ideas to help inspire a budget-friendly wedding menu that’s fresh, fun, and most important of all… irresistibly delicious.
Practical Wedding Menu Tips
Table Of Contents
Before you start whipping up menu ideas, there are a few things to consider first:
Your Wedding Menu Budget
Being clear about what your budget is before you start brainstorming different options is crucial. Once you’ve established your budget, you can get creative with the wedding menu.
A lower food budget in no way means sacrificing quality or taste.
Venue Kitchen
Does your wedding venue have a kitchen, and if so, is it a chef’s kitchen or bare bones? If it doesn’t have a kitchen, are you planning on having the meal catered? What’s your catering budget?
Theme-Inspired Wedding Menu
If you’re throwing a themed wedding such as an outdoor music festival or a Gatsby inspired 1920s themed celebration, one of the best ways of nailing the theme (beyond choosing gorgeous bridesmaid dresses, wedding gowns, and décor of course!) is to select a menu that aligns with the vibe.
Do a little research about food options from a specific era, or think about the type of food that’s synonymous with your theme, and riff off of that.
Your Foodie Friends
We all have that friend (and if we’re lucky we have a few of them!) who loves to cook and are truly undiscovered culinary artist, bringing people to their knees with their skills in the kitchen.
These are people who talk about things like au jus and crème anglaise casually, like they’re discussing the weather.
These are the perfect friends to pull in to help you with this task, and because food’s their passion, they’ll be thrilled.
Now all that’s out of the way, let’s get into our budget-friendly wedding menu ideas.
Emphasize presentation
Eating is a sensory experience, involving sight and smell as well as taste—hence the saying people “eat” with their eyes first.
One of the ways to elevate the food you serve during the wedding reception is to focus on presentation.
Here are some irresistible presentation ideas:
Create a charcuterie board-inspired meal on wood platters, bursting with a colorful array of meats, cheeses, and fruit with crackers and crisp crostini.
Serve a variety of delicate finger sandwiches, either delivered to each table on a 3-tier serving tray or displayed buffet style.
Put together skewers. They’re visually appealing, and there’s no shortage of fresh and tasty combinations. Watermelon, feta, and mint for example, or melon prosciutto skewers.
Intersperse floral arrangements throughout the serving table. Make it extra visually stimulating by creating tiers.
Don’t be afraid to play around with flavor. Delight your guests with yummy unexpected flavor combos and bright beautiful displays.
Serve Crowd pleasers
There are certain foods that almost everyone loves. Think mac and cheese, stone-fired pizza, and burgers.
What are some of your favorite comfort meals, and how can you “fancy it up” a little?
For example, rather than regular mac and cheese, serve a truffle mac with an herb breadcrumb topping, or if you’re serving pizza, how about a pear, blue cheese, and prosciutto option with arugula?
Serve a Buffet-Style Meal
The best thing about a buffet is people are able to choose what to put on their plate, in the amount that they want.
Lasagna, roast beef with garlic mashed potatoes, and a salad ripe with wedges of fresh sliced tomatoes, drizzled in a homemade balsamic dressing… What’s not to love?
Set up Food Stations
Have a taco bar or a mac and cheese bar with an assortment of different mac and cheeses (you may be surprised at all the mac and cheese ideas there are!).
The goal here is to create something fun, where people can create their own plate from a beautifully displayed array of options.
You can also combine this with the skewer ideas, allowing people to spear their own combos, and have them grilled.
Have Fewer Alcohol Options
An open bar is expensive. Instead, why not just serve beer and wine, or have two simple cocktail options?
Another idea is to nix the open bar entirely and have beer chilling in a cooler, and red and white wine there at the table, along with a large pitcher of water, for guests to serve themselves.
Most guests really don’t care how they get their drinks, they’re just happy they have them.
Conclusion:
By focusing on presentation, flavor, and fresh takes on favorites, your wedding menu is bound to be a crowd-pleaser.
