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You’ve got an event coming up, and you have no idea what to serve for food.  How many people are going to be coming?  What do they expect?  What do you need to provide?  Is it a lunch, a breakfast, a dinner, an afternoon snack, … ?

Handling issues like this with an eye toward minimalism and frugality can be difficult.  I’ve already discussed Christmas dinner in a previous post, and I stand by everything I said there – but there are other situations where the food is, quite literally, fungible.

Fungible is not only a fun word to use, but it’s very useful.  It’s used to refer to when something can be swapped for something else that’s equivalent, with no net gain or loss.

Let’s take an example.  If I hand you $20, and you put $20 in gas in your car, I could argue that I bought your gasoline.  You might argue that you bought your own gasoline, and my money paid for your new $20 headphones.  Who’s right?  The answer is “it doesn’t matter” – money is fungible.  Once the $20 enters your wallet, it becomes part of the collective pool.  Within reason, I could empty all the cash out of your wallet, replace it with different bills, and as long as they totaled the same amount it wouldn’t affect your ability to pay for groceries.  That’s fungibility.

In the case of the events above, food is frequently fungible.  You could serve any one of dozens of options, and it won’t matter.  People will eat, they’ll get full, and they’ll go home.

There are two types of food guests at events will remember – food that’s awesome, and food that’s horrible (and/or makes them sick).  Anything that doesn’t fall into those categories is pretty much equivalent.  Basic sanitation practices and a little bit of thought will keep you out of category two.  Is it worth trying for category one?

My opinion is that it’s not.  When my wife and I got married, we served cookout-style food.  This consisted of

  • Hamburgers
  • Spiral ham
  • Buns (for the above)
  • Onions, tomatoes, pickles, mayo, mustard, ketchup, etc. for the above
  • Baked beans
  • Chips
  • Vegetable trays with ranch dip
  • Various dessert items
  • Lemonade
  • Coffee (and sugar/creamer for same)
  • Pretzels & nuts for the intermission between the ceremony and dinner
  • Cupcakes (for dessert)

Our food bill for 80+ guests (we were expecting potentially 100 due to some missing RSVPs) was in the neighborhood of $300, plus another $40 or so in paper plates/plastic ware.  We fed all of the guests, sent some leftovers home with a few members of the bridal party, had enough leftovers to serve everybody lunch at the gift opening the next day, and had even more to eat throughout the next week.

Now….if you calculate this out, we basically put food on the table at the wedding for about $3 per person.  3 times 80 = $240, and the other $60 or so would be the amount of the leftovers, etc. that were either sent home with people or eaten throughout the week.

The cheapest catered food would’ve cost us $10 to $15 per plate in our market, and we wouldn’t have had the spread that we put out.

The root of this decision was fungibility.  Catered food for $10 or so per plate is very forgettable – it’s there to provide the guests with something non-offensive to eat.  That’s it.

My wife and I consciously figured that if all we’re buying for $900-$1000 (cost of catered food at $10 per plate, plus planned-in overage) was forgettable food, we could put food on the table for a lot less.

After all, it was a wedding.  The food isn’t the focus.  This isn’t a high-end dinner party where the spotlights are shining bright on the food.  For those who disagree, think back to the last several weddings you attended.  What did they serve for the main course?  The appetizer (if any)?  Side dishes?  Beverages?

If you’re anything like me, you remember the weddings.  Maybe you remember the nice guy (or lady) that was sitting across the table from you.  You probably remember a conversation or two with the bride or groom, and a few people doing crazy dances later in the evening.  The food, however, is lost in the shuffle.

The question is, are you obsessing over something that – in the end – doesn’t matter?