Wedding idea number two?

Question

Okay, so I have a backyard bbq, how classy are burgers and wieners? How on earth could I make this less like a children's birthday party? and then how do I get the guests to leave?!!!

Answer 1

you do not have to serve burgers, although nothing is wrong with that. you can serve chicken, salads, light finger foods. you can have nice decorations. and unless you have a clown or a pony in the backyard, i doubt anyone will think it's a kids birthday party.

Answer 2

Get a TON of chicken breasts and marinate them in a cheap Italian dressing or balsamic vinaigrette (even better!) then grill them out back. Easy and a bit fancier. Or get hamburger meat and mix in onions and such to make them a bit more gourmet. Skip the wieners, except maybe grill a few to keep the kids happy. Make a LARGE green salad and have lots of dressing options. Some lovely rolls and grilled corn on the cob would be great too. A big fruit salad is loved by all and can be very inexpensive.

Call it semi-formal on the invites and people will come in nice sundresses and the men in nice slacks and a button down or polo shirt.

Light the yard with tiki torches and get bunches of wild flowers in inexpensive vases. Simple touched like this can create an atmosphere and give the event some class (stay away from balloons or birthday party paper decorations).

Getting them to leave? If children and older people are there they will most likely start to filter out early. You could also tell everyone your town has a noise curfew at a certain time (even if it's not true ;D ). Have your wild cousin discreetly lead the party to a bar nearby at a certain time (you don't have to go if you don't want to). Just get creative. :)

Good luck and best wishes!

Answer 3

Word your invitations to state, not only the date, but the hours of the reception. This way people understand that this is not an event your hoping to have drag on into the next day. Also as far as the food choices, just because you host the event in your backyard, it doesn't mean you have to have typical backyard foods.
Since you are inviting about 150 people, I would think that your best bet would be a buffet style meal. This way all the food is prepared ahead of time, and people are not waiting around to eat. You can prepare a meal as simple as salad, dinner roles, seasoned potatoes, and grilled/stuffed chicken. All of these items can be done in "bulk" so it doesn't take up a lot of time. You can also have sparkling punch, which is a lot cheaper than alcohol, at least for the meal. Plus, you can chill some champing for the toast. And of course your cake. Lots of grocery store bakeries have even started making small wedding cakes, so you may want to check into that.
You can still decorate your backyard with plastic tablecloths and centerpieces on all the tables. (Really it will not look like a child's party unless you have party balloons, and hats all over the place.)
Let me know if you need more in-site.

Answer 4

Burgers are fine, you can have other stuff too, there are plenty of things one can grill. I think, unless you're inviting real party animals, people for the most part leave on their own accord - and once a few people start leaving, everyone else tends to get up and leave too. You can state the time (from _pm to _pm) on the invitations to give a subtle hint.

We had a backyard BBQ as our "reception", and my problem was the guests left too soon! I wished they'd stayed longer so I could interact with more of them.

Answer 5

The other answers had some great food options. Also, check out foodtv.com. The have great bbq ideas.

As far as getting guests to leave, put an end time in the invitation, and when that times comes, turn off the music and start cleaning up, telling people "I'm so glad you came out, this was a lot of fun". People will get the hint.

Answer 6

ok, you can rent a tent or decorate the backyard in a more sophisticated manner than a kids bday party. You'll likely have to rent tables and chairs and such and you should also be able to rent the linens and maybe even the plates so you're not eating on styrofoam if you want. You can rent chafing dishes and do things other than burgers and weiners. A friend of mine rented a nice hall that didn't serve food so instead of an expensive caterer, she bought a bunch of Stouffer's frozen lasagnes, made a couple nice side dishes, salad, good bread and voila! we were actaully quite surprised at how tasty and fresh it all tasted. Serve beer, wine and soft drinks, and you've got it made (they're are lots of really excellent very inexpensive wines out there)

Answer 7

You could actually do a buffet of finger foods for less than the cost of BBQ.
Decorations? Wedding, not birthday.
How to get them to leave, if you haven't already ordered your invitations, specify for example; Reception immediately following ceremony from 2:00p.m. to 5:00p.m.
USUALLY, if a time period is specifified on an invite, people start to leave around the end time, but in your mind, allow at least another hour for all to be gone.
If your invites have already gone out, have your invite enlarged and add the reception time to it, in a little bit larger letters to get people's attention, and display the enlarged invite where the guests will enter. On a table or even an easel.

Answer 8

A backyard BBQ sounds like an EXCELLENT idea! Quite relaxed and fun!

Getting the guests to leave... is this going to be at your house?

I would start making your rounds and saying goodbyes because you two are beat and would like to retire to your room.

That and having someone start to clean up the mess in the yard will indicate that its getting time to go home.

Answer 9

Serve grilled chicken or shish kabob....up-grade the burgers, do mushroom teriaki burgers...jazz the food up!!!! Serve salads and make a couple of fruit bowls out of watermellons. Have a wedding cake. Be creative, watch food network or go to foodnetwork.com and look up weddings on there...Paula Deen and Semi-Homemade...both feature wedding food and decore ideas that are simple, cheap, and tasteful! If yo ugo into this with a Ho-Hum attitude, it will just be an ordinary BBQ, it's up to u to make it special.

Answer 10

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