⚡ Key Takeaways
- The average UK wedding costs £17,300 with nearly half of couples exceeding their budget, but affordable catering options like food vans can significantly reduce costs without sacrificing quality or guest experience. Food van hire allows you to serve the exact amount of food needed, avoiding the typical waste of around £500 worth of uneaten wedding meals that occurs at traditional sit-down dinners. Choosing cheaper catering vendors opens up the possibility of offering multiple food options instead of just one meal and a vegetarian alternative, ensuring all your guests find something they enjoy. Mobile catering gives your wedding a modern, memorable twist that departures from traditional white tablecloths and formal dining, making your celebration stand out while the UK street food market worth £1.2 billion proves this approach is popular and trendy. Saving money on catering leaves you with extra budget to allocate towards other priorities like an upgraded wedding cake, your honeymoon fund, or personal savings without compromising on providing delicious food for your guests.
Weddings are incredible celebrations that take months of planning, but they are also renowned for being very expensive. From the venue to the dress to the decorations, everything seems to have a price tag in the hundreds or thousands. In February 2022, Hitched reported that the average UK wedding last year cost £17,300, with 48% of couples going over budget! However, you don’t have to employ extravagant catering services for your wedding because there are many more affordable options out there that will ensure your day is an event to remember!
There Are Affordable Options In Abundance
Are you planning a wedding but don’t want to break the bank?
Then you’ll be pleased to hear that there is an abundance of affordable options out there. One of the best for catering to large groups of people, as is common with weddings, is to hire food vans. They can park outside the venue, serve your guests in quick succession and provide exactly the amount of food that you need.
A shocking statistic reported in The Guardian in 2017 demonstrated that a tenth of all wedding food, which equates to an approximated £500, is thrown away. Naturally, avoiding this sort of wastefulness is essential, especially if you’re footing the bill for so many meals.
Choosing affordable options like pizza van hire, burger van hire, or fish and chip van hire means that everyone can get a good portion of food without having untouched plates left out on the tables.
The Cheaper The Catering, The More Options You Can Have
As previously stated, there are plenty of affordable options available for wedding hire, so you don’t need to commit to one expensive vendor. The majority of people will serve one meal for their wedding, along with a vegetarian alternative; however, the biggest problem with this is that not everyone is guaranteed to like the food, which will lead to more waste.
Choosing cheaper catering opens you up to more options. According to Bark.com, a sit-down wedding meal costs, on average, £150 per head. For 100 guests, this adds up to £1,500 spent on the main meal alone, excluding the cost of the wedding cake and edible party favours on top! Choosing cheaper vendors allows you to choose more variety, ensuring that your guests all get something they’ll enjoy. Seeing all the food rapidly disappear will be money well spent!
It’s A Departure From The Norm
Perhaps you’re looking to do something new with your wedding?
It can be as simple as choosing to cater on a budget.
We typically associate weddings with white tablecloths, a sit-down meal and wedding cake for dessert. However, choosing cheaper vendors gives you the option to really make your mark and have guests talking about your different weddings for ages. After all, how often do you expect to see a fleet of food hire vans pull into a wedding reception?
Departing from the norm is always fun, especially when it saves you money! In 2019, Dunn Food and Drinks announced that the UK street food market was worth a whopping £1.2 billion, so it is definitely a popular, savvy catering option for a wedding that will give guests plenty of choices. The unconventional is becoming more and more popular in the wedding industry, so why not join in with some affordable catering options on your special day?
You’ll Have More Budget Left To Spend Elsewhere
As Hitched reported, almost 50% of British couples went over budget when planning their weddings in 2021. With the average price of a wedding continuing to increase, having already surpassed £10,000 years ago, these wonderful celebrations can end up being huge financial drains that pursue newly married couples into their shared life together.
Therefore, looking for places where you can save money is vital. Naturally, you’ll be willing to spend a hefty sum on your dream venue, but you can save in several areas when it comes to the subsequent reception. Choosing affordable food vendors leaves you with leftover money that you can spend elsewhere.
For example, once all the meals are covered, you could put the additional funds into the budget for your wedding cake to make the dessert even more spectacular! Alternatively, you could take that money and put it into your honeymoon fund instead, or put it back into your savings account for future expenditures. Whatever you choose to do with the money you save on catering, you’ll be able to enjoy great food at your wedding without worrying about how much it has cost you.
Ultimately, your wedding day is what you make it, and if you want it to be a fun, memorable event that didn’t break the bank, looking into affordable catering is one of your best options. Unlike the price of the venue, you have more leeway when choosing food vendors, so why not save some money and provide food that everyone will enjoy?
To find out more about why wedding food catering doesn’t have to be extortionate, explore our website and request a quote for our affordable wedding food units today.
