Gluten-free friendly wedding on a shoestring budget...

I've been meaning to start this sooner rather than later, but I'm getting married in less than 4 days and well, some things take priority. I finally have a few minutes to sit down, breathe, and wait to do all of tomorrow's tasks tomorrow, including a bit of gluten-free (GF) cooking for Saturday's extravaganza. The constant thinking about cooking is what finally motivated me to start blogging.  That and I'm just too tired to do any more wedding prep work. 


The Fi  (that's his name for the next 4 days) and I are in our mid-thirties and are paying for most of the wedding on our own. Our families are helping where they can, so we decided that the most cost-effective way for us to celebrate our special day with what we had was to have a very small wedding, for family, at one of the local restaurants. After the small wedding, we're having a BBQ, affectionately dubbed "The B*tchin' Kegger", because we're classy like that. (It was initially the "Han Solo-Cup wedding" being that we're both somewhat nerdy,  but "The B*tchin' Kegger Wedding" just flowed better.) Since it's a BBQ and we're on a budget, I've taken to doing some of the cooking and recruiting volunteers where I can. Sunday can't get here fast enough. 


With so many people coming out of the gluten-free closet in recent days,  I wanted to make sure that everyone had something to eat at both weddings. While I've never had a true positive for Celiac Sprue on a blood test, I've been wheat-free for the last 11 years, by choice, and have noticed a multitude of benefits. I can tell you that wheat  and I have exchanged some pretty harsh words and are no longer on speaking terms. I'll get more into that in a later post though.  


I'm not a fan of Elizabeth Hasselback, but I'm thankful for her popularity and for making gluten-free "the new black". The restaurant part was easy. The Kegger? Well, so far, it looks good on paper. 


Here are a few tips / ideas for not completely losing your sanity if you're trying to plan a GF event, like... say... a wedding. 


If you're doing in on your own...


1) Determine if you're going 100% GF or if you can just have a separate GF table. We opted for what was behind door number 2. A separate table is probably going to be cheaper, will prevent cross contamination of utensils, if that's a concern, and will allow you to have a "safe" place for other dietary preferences, like vegetarianism. A lot of vegetarian options are also GF, which is a huge help. Go team!


2) Figure out what you normally eat. Use that as a baseline so that you don't go crazy and can eat the leftovers. We eat a lot of poultry, so we went with chicken and a GF marinade. The Fi's content with 100% beef burgers, which if they only contain beef and no fillers, should, in theory be GF. Read the label though. 


3) Use your RSVP cards to help determine how much food you'll need. Our cards had checkboxes for food preferences such as "Gluten-free", "Vegetarian", "None", and "Other". If you've got a funny group of friends, you'll probably get some good write-ins back in the mail as well. (I think "Whiskey and BACON" is my favorite so far.)


4) Shop around.  Use the shopper club cards, clip coupons. Buy in advance. Check with managers in the various departments in the supermarkets. Most stores change their sales on Sundays and know what the sale prices are going to be the following week. Ask about sales.  I was at a local grocery store last Saturday. The woman in the meat department told me to come back the next day, because the turkey I was going to buy was going to be 40% off. Do your homework and check the circulars too. The name brand soda was on sale two weeks ago and cost 15 less per can than the store brand. It might not seem like much at first, but I needed Thirty-two 12-packs of soda. (The normal price for the name brand 12-pack was 5.19 per pack. The sale price was 2.50.)


5) If you're serving booze and are new to GF living, the brewing process for many of the beers involves wheat or some other gluteny grain. Get a keg of regular stuff for most of your guests. They won't mind if they're not GF and kegs are usually less expensive than bottles or cans. Do your research for GF stuff. It exists. Some of what's available might surprise you. Woodchuck hard cider should be labeled GF. If you throw in some syrup from a jar of maraschino cherries (or Ribena, if you know what that is) it makes life even better. 


6) Recruit friends and family to help. Borrow freezer space, get hands to help prepare food. Accept food or services as gifts. My friends know that we're on a tight budget and so we asked them for suggestions. One friend asked me if she could make me a GF wedding cake and if that could be her gift. I was thrilled. Another friend is making trays of GF / veg rice and beans. Another, pulled pork. A fourth friend is making GF potato salad. Another friend is taking pictures, and another helped The Fi to cast our wedding rings. (We were super lucky with that last one.) The list goes on. You just need to ask people for help / suggestions. And if you're not going 100% GF, let aunt Martha make her macaroni salad. Just make sure the GF stuff is labeled as such for the GF people. 




If you're using an outside facility... 

1) Talk to the catering people. Don't be afraid to share your GF recipes with them. People are only just now starting to learn what this stuff is all about. Show them that it's doable and is so much more than quinoa with lemon juice.  

2) Explain to them what your needs are, but don't go overboard.  If you have one GF dish that you know you can eat, that's fine. Remember, this is one day. Don't be a pain in the butt. Appreciate that people are trying to help. Keep the menu reasonable. 

And most importantly, remember to breathe. 

(Gluten-free wedding menu to follow...)