Why? Catering can be expensive. You're not just paying for the cost of the food, but the preparation time, cooking, serving, making sure food dishes stay filled, clean up, etc. Why not save a little bit of money by having someone you know prepare the appetizers, desserts, or main entree. Or better yet, all three! By having someone you know cater, you might be able to get away with only paying for the cost of food! (And a nice thank you gift for the one doing all the work.)
How do you DIY? My mom loves cooking and preparing food for events and has taken on catering as a bit of a side-hobby. My lovely neighbors have also worked in the catering business (they helped cater my sisters wedding back in 2009). However, even if your mom doesn't have any catering experience there might be someone else you know who does: neighbors, relatives, friends of friends? It never hurts to ask around.
The first step is to decide on a menu. My husband and I wanted to have chicken and steak shish-kabobs, but we weren't sure what kind of sauce we wanted the meat marinated in. We easily incorporated the menu-selecting process into our everyday lives by having dinner with my parents and trying out different recipes. We tried out half a dozen different recipes (and styles of cooking) and marked the recipes we liked best. We also had plenty of hors d'oeuvre and wine tasting parties to help finalize the menu. Yum.
Three of the biggest issues with catering yourself are 1. finding volunteers to help serve 2. making sure you have enough people to help prepare the food, and 3. transportation.My mom had a lot of her friends from church volunteer to help. There were also a few family-friends of my parents that didn't quite make the guest list that were able to help with the food. As far as transportation goes, I suggest you try to prepare and cook the food as close to your wedding venue as possible, because it'll make hauling everything over to the reception area a lot easier.
Early on we decided we wanted to serve the food to our guests ourselves. We had the "catering help" set up the buffet style tables and get the food ready to serve and when it was time the entire wedding party put on aprons and gloves and began to serve.
As a gesture of gratitude, it was a great way for us give thanks to our guests for coming, and be able to greet those guests that didn't want to wait in the greeting line after the ceremony. (For those that did wait in the greeting line, it was nice to see them a second time! It is surprisingly difficult to try to talk to everyone you invite to your wedding.)
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