Help W/reeeallly Inexpensive Wedding (i.e. Cake, Hawaiian Style Food).

I don't know if it's too late, timing wise...

But when DH and I were married (a little untraditionally), we were both full time students at the U with a 2 year old (read dead broke).

We were married at 8pm and had a "Dessert Reception". Wedding Cake & Coffee was served by us.... and close friends baked cookies, brownies, made chocolate covered strawberries, etc. We had 75 people and our food budget was $200.

The late ceremony gave people plenty of time to eat beforehand... then we had dessert & were dancing under the stars.

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Easy - http://www.hawaiianbarbecue.com/ cheap, delicious, done this many times for events & get the cake at Costco or even your regular market, with only 20 people you should only need 1/2 sheet. Congrats!

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You could go with Hawaiian Haystacks (search recipes online). Pretty cheap to put together (I don't think they're authentic Hawaiian though, depending on your guests). Also, WalMart or bakeries in grocery stores make wedding cakes for fairly inexpensive. If you wanted to go really inexpensive on the cake, you could go with a Hawaiian upside down pineapple cake.

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I'm assuming you are cooking. If so that won't be a problem. You can stretch the food budget by making chicken into thin strips and put them on skewers like satay or vegetable stir fry type foods. They have similar food for luau. Believe it or not. You can do El Pollo Loco and change the containers. You can get roasted chicken, rice etc. for about $50+ that would feed 20 easily. Just change out the containers for pretty ones. You can bake a cake with cake mix. There are a lot of pans you can get from the craft store to make beautiful looking things. You could go to your local grocery store bakery and get a cake made. They can decorate it. A sheet cake is usually around $18. It may be a little more if you want a fancier decoration. It is doable. GOOD LUCK!

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Hi K.!

One thing that really helps to stretch a dollar is to have your protiens (meats) cut up in your foods. IE: Baked Pasta with Chicken, Broccoli and Alfredo Sauce. Kebabs with rice & salad. I wouldn't try to have too many options because most people like to try some of everything when they make their plates. I would have a BIG salad with lots of goodies in it like: lettuce, tomatoes, cucmbers, black beans, green onions, sliced olives, fresh grapes or dried cranberries, crumbled feta cheese with a simple vinaigrette dressing. Do a baked pasta and some garlic bread. Load your pasta with veggies and still have meat in it, but when it's cut into chunks it goes ALOT further. If you do something where your protiens (meats) are seperate, have it on the end of your buffet table because people will have already put the other things on their plates and will have less room left for the more costly meat component. Also, don't get large plates. Use lunch sized plates. So many people over serve when their plates are too big. If they want seconds that's great, but so much of the time so much food gets thrown away from over serving. For the cake, how about home made cupcakes with pretty decorations on top? Even if you use a box mix they make 24 cupcakes each and you would only need 2 boxes. If you use a mix make sure to use homemade frosting though. Tub frosting is horrible and homemade can be thrown together in no time. $150.00 is more money than you think and you really can do alot with it. If you need any specific recipes, let me know, I'm a caterer and I've made many a meal on a tight budget.

I hope that this helped!

Be blessed,

K.

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wow that's real hard... I mean, just groceries for 1 week for a family of 4, costs more than that in Hawaii.

Could the people all pot-luck or something? Or try and get someone you know to "donate" some food...

Hawaiian food is not cheap... lomi-lomi, fish, lau-lau... not cheap stuff.

I would talk with the bride and see what options there are.
MAYBE have the wedding at a different time... meaning instead of having it at major "lunch" time or "dinner" time... have it at like in-between hours so that people don't think you will feed them Lunch or dinner... just a pupu type thing.

Good luck,
Susan

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We have friends who are native Hawaiians (as well as friends from Tonga), and at their daughter's wedding reception, they served something that most Hawaiians eat frequently, but is rarely served at luaus - beans (canned pork & bean type) with chunks of Spam and pineapple. :) White rice is fairly inexpensive, and if you have a Costco nearby, you can get teriyaki chicken skewers or chunks fairly inexpensively. Add bowls of melon and pineapple, and you're done. I agree with either getting a bakery cake or baking yourself, depending on your comfort level. In general, don't tell the bakery the cake is for a wedding (the price goes WAY up), just ask for 1 to 3 regular cakes, square or round, frosted in white with either white frosting flowers or flowers in the wedding colors. Set the cakes on upside down footed bowls, candlesticks or even just large cans wrapped in fabric, to give it the look and feel of being on stands. If you bake the cakes yourself, just frost them with canned frosting and decorate them with fresh flowers or greenery. (Even flowers from your yard should work.) I've seen weddings use a single sheet cake, too. The day should be about celebrating, not exhausting yourself or trying to impress anyone. Congrats to all involved!

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Ask a friend to bake your cake for you... just make a small layered cake & decorate it simply with fresh flowers and white icing. that one you can cut for pictures. Then make tiny (just 2 bites worth...) cupcakes in a couple of flavors for your guests. Cupcakes are really "in" right now... and I recently saw these tiny cupcakes at the mall for $1.50 each believe it or not! They can be made ahead of time & frozen. Then the day of wedding, just pipe some frosting on each one with a pastry bag and top with something cute... red hot heart, M&M in bright hawaiian colors or whatever. We did this recently for a 90th B-Day party... and served them on nice pedestal cake plates... with the little layer cake in the center of the table...it turned out great and everyone raved. This is very inexpensive compared to purchasing a bakery cake... looks much cuter & even tastes better.

Costco for everything! They're the best. Huge delicious cakes, and also great appetizers in large quantities.

Not sure exactly what your looking for but for a party we did hawaiian food we had bbq ribs, potato salads, some fruit salads, veggie trays and pinapple upside down cakes

You've received a lot of great responses specific to how to feed 20 people for that amount, so I'm not going to talk more about that. What I wanted to suggest to you is how to make it look more expensive. Really think Hawaii when serving everything - like serving on large leaves. I like the idea of the ice cream scoop for the rice and would like to take it one step further. Perhaps, in order to make sure you don't have to make more than enough, have each meal pre-served in a sense on large leaves - one skewer chicken, one skewer terriyaki beef, one scoop rice and maybe a scoop of mango chutney type salad. Make 20-30 of those and place them in chafing dishes to keep warm (caterers out there can comment on whether this is workable). As people come through the buffet line, they just grab their one leaf. Or, if they will have servers, have these 'plates' served as a sit-down course.

As for cake, you've received some great suggestions. Just make sure if you use fresh flowers for the decor, that the flowers are edible (or at least not poisonous).

As a wedding professional, I can say that some of the most fun weddings are the ones where you have to get really creative. Enjoy helping your friend!

For my cake, we used double layer rounds from Albertsons with smooth white frosting. I don't recall the price, but I know they were inexpensive. My whole wedding was. :) We got flowers from Costco. Approx $15 for 2 dozen roses. We used those for the flowers and had some left over, and put a single rose on the top of each cake. Looked really simple, elegant...
Good Luck!

Your best bet is to make everything or enlist help to make everything. If you bought 2 cake mixes and 2 frostings, you could make one small layered cake and the rest as cupcakes. Decorate with all white and then put some silk flowers on top of the layered cake. If you use 3 smaller rounds instead of 2 standard rounds, you can make a tall elegant layered cake for the couple to cut. From one box of cake mix you can get about a 12-15 servings.

As for the food, I would stick with appetizer types of food. Go to costco and buy the food in bulk, but don't buy the ready made platters. Make your own fruit platter and veggie platter. If you know how to make eggrolls, potstickers, or teriyaki meat skewers, they can be somewhat tropical in theme (although not necessarily Hawaiian). Make a big batch of white rice (this is super cheap) and use an ice cream scoop to serve. Most Hawaiian parties serve rice like that. If you want to go really Hawaiian you can make something with SPAM! That's really inexpensive!

Hope this helps!

I got my wedding cake from Albertson's. We were on a tight budget and had limited time, It was inexpensive and looked good, and tasted great! I recomend the marble cake, bavarian cream filling and buttercream frosting. I think it cost 45 bucks, but that was 8 yrs ago. Give them a try :)

Find someone who has a roaster oven and have then make some Kalua Pork which is easy and yummy. (The roaster oven is great because it's like a GIANT crockpot so you can make a lot all at once). Have other people make a bunch of rice. Have some yummy fruit platters that aren't too expensive if someone's willing to cut a bunch of fruit for a couple of hours. I made my own wedding cake, and I have an awesome frosting recipe for cake decorating if you'd like it. Then put some beautiful fresh edible flowers on it to decorate. Good luck. :)

Just over $7 a person... My first thought is Costco. They have really great filled cakes I think they are 1/2 sheet for $16.99. You can order them with whatever you want written on the cake or just a design. The size would feed 20 people because we just had one for my son's birthday and we had cake left over with 12 kids and 10 adults. That would leave about $130 left over. If you need hawaiian style food I know they have chicken teriakyi on sticks and add some rice... Or maybe some chicken breasts with some pineapple (BBQ??), even with some fish or shrimp. I would try for finger food, that way you wouldn't have to worry about forks etc., just some napkins... I think you can do it, just have to be really creative!! I have never been there but I hear smart and final has really good prices too.

we were in a similar situation. my MIL bought a plain white wedding cake and we used silk tropical flowers to decorate, it was gorgeous. she bought the silk flowers from like the dollar store, i kid you not! you'll be okay. maybe chip in to get the cake yourself if you are having trouble, as a gift to the couple? if worse comes to worse the bride may have to compromise on the menu - it's her budget after all, she does have to be realistic. good luck!

Hello, When our third child (a daughter) and her first husband were planning their wedding, we only had a few weeks to get it all together. Her fiance's mother wanted to do the food for the reception. I did the rehearsal dinner. After buying all of the food for the dinner, his mother backed out of the food for the reception. We now had 5 days to get this. I sent them to Costco with what money I could scrounge up on such short notice. They got party trays and then we cut up our own fruits and salad vegetables. It was a September wedding, so this worked very well. Maybe you could do something like that with more of a Hawaiian tray. They had a friend who made the layered wedding cake. We also bought a couple of the sheet cakes from Costco. We had around 150 people to feed and it turned out great.
Good luck with your wedding.
K. K.

This is do-able. It's only 20 people. I'd look up recipes for the food, then make pork as the meat in the crock pot, flavor it with sweet 'n sour type sauce. Try CostCo for a sheet cake, they will personalize the decoration on it for you.

Have fun with it.

Is there a costco in your area? You could have a nice white sheet cake made and decorated with white icing and then add some fresh flowers. The last one I bought was $16.99 and delicious. What about a fruit platter, some chicken pineapple teriyaki meatballs (that are very tasty), a veggie tray, and a few other finger foods to round out the table. Use or borrow some nice serving bowls and trays and it can have a very classy look.

My niece is getting married and is on a shoestring budget too, she is getting her cake from Wal-Mart and I can't remember what she is spending (maybe around $50 or $60) and it will be a 5 tier cake. Also, it would probably be helpful if you cook the Hawaiian Food, like cooking the pork butt in the crock pot or steaming the lau lau yourself. The only problem is that it takes time and if she wants lomi salmon and all that other stuff, it gets expensive. I would go to Costco and look and see what you can get or the other option which my niece is doing is to go to Panda's (I know Chinese) and price it there, it is not too expensive and she is feeding 20 people only so it might not be too bad.