Whatever type of party you decide on, you will have to consider the party catering. Whether it’s a silver-service 3-course meal, a buffet, or a fancy reception with champagne down the lawn, among the biggest bulk of the party budget goes into food and drinks.

The provision of food and drinks during parties can be done in various ways. The couple can decide on hiring a professional caterer, in-house catering service on the venue of the party, or by having it done by a local restaurant. For some on tighter budgets, it may even be more practical to make the party for on their own. Whatever you decide on, you may have to have a lot of decision-making and pondering to do.

If you decide on hiring a party caterer, since there are definitely a lot to choose from these days, it will be important for you to ask them of the service they can provide, if the cost fits your budget, and if the service is reasonable enough with its cost. This is significant especially if you want to have minimum costs within your budget. The party caterer can work on the budget, if you decide, and get out your desires and ideas to them.

However, a lot of brides decide to choose to cater for their own party menus. This is surely a cost-cutting move, as the costs for the catering will surely lessen.

To do this, consider the number of guests on your party. Whether it will be 50 to a hundred, you do not really need to cut down just to lesser catering expenses. Instead, plan for the right party menu. This way, having a bigger number of guests would not be pricey. This is because the type of food that you choose to be served for the party affects the catering expense, regardless if you choose to have either a sit-down menu, or a buffet. For some, it can be a mixture of both types, a combination of sit-down meals for a few guests, then later a buffet meal for the larger number of guests.

To have a sit-down meal is definitely a more costly choice than having buffet meals, although, it can definitely add up to the class and elegance of your party. For sit-down meals, the most of you can make to fit the limited budget is to tri down the guest list. But then, you can actually emit doing that, by having a few guests have the sit-down meal, while others are served with buffet later in the reception.

Chicken and pork are usually the budget-friendly choices, as compared to lamb and beef. Serving them with side dishes such as potatoes with cream, or rice is a good way to bulk out the meal. However for some who does not like the idea of all the guests having to have one meal serving, it will be a good idea to have the waiters serve two different options, and have each of them choose which they would want; or serve them alternately to each guest on the table. They can also exchange plates with some other people in the table, if they wish. This way, you can serve chicken to half of the guests, and beef to others. For your cake, make sure you have some wonderful ideas to incorporate such as an edible cake image to accentuate your cake which you can easily make on your own for cost-cutting.

The choice to have a buffet-style is cheaper. Also, servers and waiters are not needed, thus, cutting down on the cost. But then, you have to remember that as guests get food for themselves, some may tend to get bigger portions of the food. The worse that could happen is running out of food, or spending for the excess on the food and drinks. This can be avoided by having a server on each dish, to give out equal portions of the food to each guest. Many would definitely want a full meal on a buffet-style, but this option can be very expensive. Thus, choosing on limited meat, fish, or vegetable choices; then choosing one among pasta, bread and potatoes, is preferable. Serve plenty of salad and vegetable, as this will keep the guests’ plates full. Generally, guests would want a little bit of everything. It is more likely that guests won’t really get a lot of the few expensive things on the menu, which is a good thing. Choosing the buffet style will still definitely be cheaper than sit-down style, despite the quality of food to be served.

Creating a party menu on a budget is truly all about knowing when to cut back and when to indulge. Using party menu ideas that balance good selections with expense can really help you save some money on the entire party and especially on the party reception.