Evening buffet - how many to cater for?

oggydog

Im getting married in May in North Devon and am unsure of how many people to cater for in the evening.. We have approx. 70 guests for the day/meal then an extra 25 in the evening.
We are eating our 3 course meal quite late, about 5 and the evening reception starts at 8pm. The buffet for the reception costs 4.95 per person and consists of homemade bread, dip, olives etc. We will also be serving our wedding cake/brownies.
I'd love to hear your opinions on how many to pay for.

Lorian

oggydog wrote: »

The buffet we have chosen costs 4.95 per person and consists of homemade bread, dip, olives etc. We will also be serving our wedding cake/brownies.

Doesn't sound like much of meal?

tessie_bear

dont u have to pay for everyone who will be there.....it sounds nice

oggydog

no, we're having a 3 course meal at 5pm for all the guests invited to the ceremony, then we have 25 extra guests arriving at 8pm and the light buffet will be served about 9pm. I've been advised not to pay for all the guests for the buffet as most of the food gets wasted. Someone said to possibly pay for half the day guests and all the evening guests, so enough for 65 guests in our case, to prevent spending too much money on food that will get wasted.

gill_81uk

My venue stipulate that we have to cater for a minimum of 80% of our evening guests.

As the vast majority will have had a 5 course meal at 4pm I will definitely only be catering for the minimum I can!

tessie_bear

did the venue advise u ? could u ask them what they think ? hard one as its no good wasting but then u want something to give people

Taadaa

I think that if you are sitting down to eat a three course meal at five, which will take a couple of hours at least, you won't want to eat again after 8. Maybe just nibble. If there is no minimum on who you have to cater for, then I would go for all the evening guests and half of the day guests.

*Louise*

I think 60-65 sounds a reasonable amount to cater for - you don't want too much wastage

bride_on_a_budget

alot of venues sat to cater for 100 % of evening guests and 50 % of day guests.

this is what we did , we had our bbq at 530pm and the evening buffet at 9pm and to be honest their was a lot of food left over after the buffet

kte

Our venue recommends to cater for 75% of guests for the buffet....

moneytracker

I knew someone who's friend was a caterer and they were told to only ever cater for about half total as most people won't eat, so I would save yourself the money if there is no minimum.

We went to a wedding at the end of october and they had a 3 course meal about 5 and brought the buffet out about 9. Very few people ate anything though as all the day guests had eatenthe meal and with the night guests not arriving until 7/8 like your most had eaten before they came out so the food was just wasted.

I would think you could probably get away with catering for about 1/3 but you could for 1/2 of the guests if you wanted it to look like there was plenty out.