The Food

The cost of food and drink can easily run into thousands of dollars even for a small reception. We wanted to serve our guests a delicious meal after the wedding ceremony, but we saw no reason to serve anything that we wouldn’t normally serve guests at home. In my humble opinion, this is where wedding costs can skyrocket. Brides think they must come up with some kind of gourmet fare with gorgeous presentation in order to please their guests. Certainly, if a bride has the money and she likes “fancy” food, by all means, hire a gourmet caterer! But I knew I didn’t have that kind of money and I was certain I could feed 200 guests for $500. Well, okay, we did end up spending a bit more – the final tab was more like $600, but that’s still well below what a caterer would charge to feed that number of people. With this in mind, we put together a menu of our favorite homemade dishes and then multiplied the recipes to feed 200. Our wedding menu was actually the same one we used for my daughter’s high school graduation party and, for us, this lent some sentimental charm to our buffet dinner.

The Story of The Ham

Knowing that hams go on sale a couple of weeks before Christmas, I looked for pre-glazed fully cooked spiral cut hams in the second week of December and, sure enough, Safeway had them on sale for 99¢ per pound. I got an added discount using my club card – so much of a discount that a manager had to be called over because I’d “saved too much”, but they did honor the price that rang up! These were bone-in and would need to be carved but I knew I could get help with that. After the reception we ended up giving the ham bones to several happy guests who laughingly considered them one of the best wedding party favors they’d ever received!

The ham bones were a bonus to our guests who took them home to make pea soup. One guest took one for her dog to chew on. We were happy to "recycle" them.

The hams were almost a disaster, though, and I must say I think we showed a lot of grace under pressure with regard to them. I purchased 16 hams and put them in the freezer at home. Then it occurred to me that we should at least “test drive” one of them before the wedding, so I took one out, noted how long it took to defrost, wrapped it in foil and baked it. At dinner my family eagerly tucked in and, horrors, the ham tasted awful! The glaze Safeway used tasted like vinegar to all of us. There was also an unpleasant oiliness on the meat, perhaps some kind of liquid that was added, which also contributed to our disappointment and growing panic. I’d just spent $160 on hams that were inedible! Then I had an idea. What if I washed the commercial glaze off of the ham and put our own glaze on it instead? The following evening I rinsed each slice of ham in tepid water to remove the commercial glaze and the oily liquid. Then I re-glazed them and…success!

A week before the wedding I took all the hams out of the freezer in the garage and left them out. Since it was February and cold outside, this worked fine and they defrosted in three days. Next I rinsed each ham in tepid water, fanning out the spiral slices and lightly scrubbing the rind, and patted it dry with paper towels. Then I brushed on a generous amount of our homemade glaze, wrapped each ham tightly in heavy duty foil, and packed all 15 hams into my refrigerator to await The Day. It was a bit of work but well worth it judging by the compliments we received. :)

The Story of The Cheesy Potatoes

Cheesy Potatoes are a favorite at our church. The recipe isn’t mine but rather that of a beloved member who passed away several years ago. When asked what I was serving at the reception I’d say, “Ham, cheesy potatoes, and—“ I was usually enthusiastically interrupted with, “Cheesy potatoes! I love cheesy potatoes!!” This enthusiasm carried over into the reception when several guests (and I’m not exaggerating here) came to me and said, “Oh, the bride and groom look so happy and everything is so lovely, but those cheesy potatoes!! I must have the recipe!” and “Isn’t the bride beautiful? And the ceremony was so touching, but those cheesy potatoes!! I must get the recipe!” Needless to say, I made copies of the recipe available after the wedding to all those who wanted it.

The Story of The Green Salad

The green salad has a little bit of a story because one week before the wedding there was a hard frost in Mexico that wiped out the lettuce crop! Not only was there a scarcity of lettuce on store shelves, especially Iceberg and Romaine, what was available was small and expensive. Thankfully, just two days before the wedding my local grocery store got in a nice shipment of Romaine. It was horribly expensive -- $2.49 for two smaller heads – but it looked good, not frostbitten, and there was plenty of it! This was the only item I did not buy on sale; I was simply grateful to get it at all.

The freeze down south was an unexpected wrinkle in our plans but we managed.

Tips for success:

• Make sure you have enough freezer space for bulk food items. We had a chest freezer in our garage and it was just big enough for 15 hams and several bags of frozen hash browns.
• Test drive your food! Freeze, thaw, cook, and eat the food you intend to serve before The Day arrives. You'll have a better idea of the time you’ll need to prepare it, and you'll also know if you want to tweak the recipes in any way to make it as delicious as you want it to be.
• Buy food on sale and in season. You will save a lot of money this way.
• Shop discount stores like COSTCO for baking pans, heavy duty foil, and other non-perishable items.
• Ask for help with food preparation!

Recipes coming soon...