This is Chapter 6 of an ongoing series following the journey of a couple throwing an intimate, DIY wedding in Washington, DC. Be sure to check out the earlier chapters from this series for some great DIY tips and inspiration!
Catering is a HUGE expense for your wedding.
At Chart House we are averaging about $50 per person (which is still on the cheap side for a wedding with good food). But how did we save some money AND at the same time add some cute DIY details to our wedding?? Answer: Snacks!!!! HOORAY for snacks.
So, we figured since we will be stuck on a bus (courtesy of Regal Limo) to and from the Jefferson Memorial in cherr
y blossom festival traffic anyway… why not turn it into a “party bus”? We are allowed to bring our own food and beverages. Our guests are meeting at 4PM, so they will already be at our wedding for 2 1/2 hours before the cocktail reception even starts. It’s the least we can do to get some snacks in their stomaches and make the bus ride more interesting. If you don’t have a bus, you could still give out snacks or leave them on the chairs the end of your ceremony, or even ask your reception venue if you can bring food “favors” that people will probably consume on the spot!
We spent the weekend elbow deep in fruit and nuts. I bought cashews, walnuts, and trail mix at CVS with a coupon. I then bought the dried cherries at Target and pink M&Ms on sale after Valentine’s Day. We knew we wanted to serve beer and Claude thought that mixing everything together would not go well with beer, so we opted to give each guest 2 bags: Sweet & Salty!
- “Sweet” dried cherries, dried cranberries, raisins, yogurt covered cranberries, m&ms
- “Salty” almonds, walnuts, peanuts, cashews, pretzels
We bought the cellophane treat bags in the $1 section of Target during Valentines Day and labeled each bag with a home printed label and stapled them shut. We then put one of each bag into a brown lunch bag and put a home printed office depot address label on each lunch bag…. It says “Eat, Drink and Be Married” and explains that they can add the bags together for a yummy trail mix. We completed the bags with a hole punched in the top and a piece of natural and pink raffia (both $1 from Target) tied around the top.
(^*DIY TIP: This is a great way to make your own guest bags OR favors!!*)
We will serve them in little pine trays that were had during a sale at Ben Franklins for $2 each. We will bring a cooler with a domestic inexpensive beer, water and cherry sodas too.
I think they turned out really cute and hope our guests will appreciate the extra effort that we put into giving them a snack that was both practical and good. Not to mention the extra expense we saved on catering because we didn’t have to purchase another appetizer at the restaurant. Every dollar saved is a good thing!
