Reception ideas

First welcome mllyles79....you will get a WHOLE wealth of info from the ladies on this site. Secondly I'm having my family/friends of family cook for my wedding. It's saving us literally thousands of dollars by doing this. Our wedding is going to be so big because we both have big families, church families, and know quite a few people. One of the keys is finding someplace that will let you do your own food....

I had my favorite chicken spot cater and saved some money, but if I would've let my family cook, we would've saved more. It's definately the best alternative, but the only downside is the stress the day of. If you let his family cook, make sure they are dependable and give them one entree/side dish each. (sidebar: the only thing my aunt had to make was the seafood pasta salad. She showed up extremely LATE, like almost at the close of the reception with the pasta. Grrr! I'm still not speaking to her.)

WHOA, now that's crazy! I probably wouldn't have even showed up, if I were that late, I mean by then everyone's through eating!!! Why do we DO that?

My mother is in charge of coordinating the food of it...thank the lord. She has cooked and helped coordinate more weddings, funerals, baby showers etc, etc, then I can count. She's always said that when we get married, we won't have to worry about anything regarding food and cooking. She knows who's dependable, who can cook etc. So I agree with Cinny, if you are going to use your family, make sure you are sure who's doing what and if you can depend on them.

She totally shocked me with the tardiness. She's usually dependable...for my bachelorette party, she was the bartender/hostess/server. She did her thing with the pasta, so I asked her to make it again for the wedding. She called me the morning of the wedding and asked me what time to drop it off. I told her to drop it off before noon, this heffa came strolling in---my bad, she sent her daughter in with the dish around 9pm and left! The wedding started at 3:30pm. Oh yeah, and she RSVP'ed FIVE people (her, her daughters, and her man), none of them showed. She still can't look me in the face, and I never bothered to ask her what happened because what's done is done. I just know not to invite or ask her to do anything for me.

[quote="mllyles79"]I have been told several times that the first thing we need to do is find a reception site... My FH's family says they would love to cook, they are great cook's but.. Any ideas?,
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Welcome. As usual My post is rather late, but this needs to be said...If you can get his family to cook, and they have shown themselves to be reliable in the past, by all mean let them cook. The only thing that I need to warn you about is a slight problem I ran into: a lot of reception venues allow only approved caterers (narrows your food choices/$options DRAMATICALLY) Other venues require the caterer to have a certain type of license/insurance.
My sugusstion to you is if you are dead set on having his family cook to save money be sure the FIRST question you ask at the venue interview is do they allow outside catering, and do they need to be licensed. VERY important before you sign anything!! Let us know what you end up doing.
BTW when is the wedding?

Girl, get everything in writing, and offer to pay something....and get a price. Sometimes, if people agree to do somethng for free, its a chance they may not be diligent about it, but when money is involved write it all down. Include in there that if they are so many minutes late, there will be no final payment (you may lose a deposit). I'm just trying to say that $$ is an incentive for people to get it together...
My personal belief is that your reception is where 40-50% of your budget will go so going with a reputable professional (caterer, hotel, restaraunt, etc) is worth spending the $$ on, plus you save a headache. My coordinator spent 8,000 on food alone and she said it was money well spent because everything went off without a hitch! But thats what HER budget allows. PLUS her total wedding was like 12,000 so you can see she saved $$ a lot of places elsewhere!
You have to consider the savings vs. the headaches. Plus there are ALWAYS other places in the budget to cut costs.....So take some time to look at a budget, which could go up or down as time goes by but you need something to start with:)

Cinny, that's a daggone shame!!!!! I'm glad you didn't get stressed out about it on your day though. But, she just ought to be a shamed of herself!!!

Excellent, excellent advice Bee!

Welcome to the site, Mllyeles! These Ladies have given great advice. Cinny, I'm sorry that happened to you but, atleast she wasn't responsible for ALL of the food. Things would have gotten pretty ugly.Lol.

Yep...My other aunt made the hor'derves. They came out great. Her stuff was ready the night before. Outside of the hor'derves & the seafood pasta salad, everything else was catered. Mllyles, find some reception sites, and if you find one that allows you to bring in your own caterer, start collecting quotes.