eat, drink, and be married

Food and drink is what ultimately makes weddings so expensive. It really doesn't matter what the quality of the food is, at the end of the day, when you're feeding 70 people (which is a small group compared to most weddings), even if you go to McDonald's it's going to end up costing you some serious money. And if a wedding doesn't have an open bar I just want to throw a tantrum because, come on, seriously?

Having the reception at our house afforded us some more flexibility - I know most venues have caterers you are required to use when you rent their space, and so we were lucky in that we didn't have to deal with any of that. We were also the luckiest ever of all time that my mom is a superwoman and took care of basically all the food for our entire wedding.

When she asked what she could help out with and I said the food, I did not expect for her to caterer the entire thing and not ask for a cent from us. She came early Saturday morning with crock pots, prepared foods, serving trays, you name it, and spent the entire day cooking and setting up the spread in the basement. She brought a friend to help and also to keep an eye on things throughout the evening, and not once did I have to worry about trash or drink refills or any such thing. It was magical. It was by far the biggest help and largest money saving opportunity we had throughout the entire process.

Thanks, Mom!

And on top of that, the food was excellent! From fruit salad, to sausage and peppers, to hotdogs and hamburgers, there was a ton of variety and it all tasted amazing. The basement worked great for it - we had sangria set up on the upstairs kitchen table, so people could grab it as they walked out, and then put together a plate of food in the basement, and then take it all outside to the backyard where the tables were set up. The tables all had a bucket of beers and a carafe of white wine and one of red wine, which were refilled by my mom's friend as needed. Flawless.

So I know you aren't all fortunate enough to have a mom that can do this for you - my mom has a background in hospitality and knows a lot of caterers and so on. But you can definitely try to take advantage of those kinds of connections. She bought a lot of things at a restaurant supply kind of place where you could buy food in bulk, and that saved her a lot of money. And of course like I said, having the reception at your house will give you some more options, like cooking yourself or having people bring dishes, that you wouldn't have at most venues.

David and I were only responsible for the booze and the dessert. We knew we wanted cupcakes, and after a lot of searching decided to go with a company called Jimmies Cupcake Co. They were definitely the most reasonably priced and had the biggest selection. All the cupcakes are named after a famous "Jimmy" - we went with the James Bond (red velvet), James Caan (vanilla with strawberry frosting), Jesse James (vanilla with chocolate icing), and James Monroe (chocolate with vanilla frosting). They asked what our colors were and even decorated the cupcakes to match, and delivered them on Saturday morning. They were bigger than I expected and looked great, and were absolutely delicious!

For drinks we decided to go with beer, wine, and sangria. I found a sangria recipe online that was super simple - just blush wine, strawberry lemonade (actually it called for watermelon lemonade but good luck finding that), strawberries, and watermelon. We filled a giant beverage dispenser with that and it was gone in about 8 minutes. We got all the wine in boxes which was way more affordable, and from Total Wine in Delaware, which is super cheap and there are no taxes! I've heard mixed opinions on whether or not it's exactly legal to buy alcohol in Delaware and bring it to Pennsylvania but after doing some research it looks like as long as it's just for personal use it's okay. There we also got a bottle of wedding cake flavored vodka, which we did shots of at the reception.

The beer we got from a distributor by our house, just some Miller Lite and Yuengling. Overall, we spent just over $200 for the cupcakes (and that's including delivery), and about $400 on the alcohol. I just googled the national average cost of wedding cakes and desserts and it came up as $451, and a beer and wine bar for our size would have likely been about $1500. Nobody complained about the selection, and there was more than enough for everyone (in fact, I still have about half a box of red wine in my refrigerator).

Cheers!