Many brides will spend over half of their wedding budget providing a full catered meal for their guests, which can be wonderful if your finances permit. However, if you find yourself with limited funds there are several ways to save while still preserving the lavish and elegant atmosphere of a traditional wedding meal.If a full dinner is important to you consider serving buffet style. A served dinner not only requires knowing what each guest would like well in advance (chicken vs. beef, etc.), but also considerable catering staff to serve the meal. Buffets allow greater flexibility for both you and your guests. Last minute changes can be made to the menu without any serious ramifications, and guests can decide what they want to eat and how much of it they want. Plan on saving anywhere from 10% to 50% simply by choosing a buffet. If you really want hockey sticks a served dinner, other options include cutting the overall number of guests or making the reception by invitation only.You may also want to consider an evening ceremony, starting between seven and seven thirty, where you serve hor?dourves and a dessert. This option allows you to serve a large number of guests exotic food for slightly less than a basic meal, or an array of domestic hor?dourves for significantly less than a full dinner. You can reasonably expect to save at least another 25% over serving a buffet dinner. A pleasant side effect of serving hor?dourves is that you do not need seating for all of your guests at the reception site, which means you can use a smaller facility and do not need chairs and tables available for all of your guests. While this may not seem significant, keep in mind that renting a simple chair will cost at least $1.