Wedding - How much food for the evening buffet?

thescouselander

I am getting married next year so I'm trying to get everything arranged for the wedding. One problem we are having is we aren't sure about how many to cater for for the evening buffet. The venue we are going for has quite high prices for the buffet so we dont want to over-do it. My feeling is that if we cater for 100% of the guests there will be too much food.

At my sisters wedding most people were full after the wedding breakfast so they didn't eat all that much from the buffet. My own experience is that I tend not to eat too much from the buffet if I have eaten at the main meal. Then there is the potential for some no-shows so there may not be as many as we expect in the evening.

How should we size the evening buffet?

wolfehouse

your question will probably
get a better response in the weddings and anniversaries thread.

i read on a wedding cake site that they cater for 70% of the guests to eat cake.

this site is fascinating though but is a guide to making you own food
http://www.ellenskitchen.com/bigpots/plan/wedding.html

i agree with you that you probably will have a lot left over if you cater for 100%. what about discussing this with the venue caterers? some venues don't allow you to order less than the number of guests.

KT1985

They say to cater for 70%, which is fair, but only if you look at the numbers at the wedding breakfast... if you are having 50 to the wedding breakfast and then 100 extra to the evening then that doesn't work, and the calculation would need to be higher.

It is always better to have more food than you need rather than less, otherwise it could be embarrasing for you.

liney

I'd much rather over do then under do it.

What time is your wedding breakfast, and what time will the buffet be brought out? People often get the munchies after they have had a fewdrinkies so may go back for seconds later in the evening. At our wedding i only had 45 to the wedding/breakfast, but then 120 at night time. We asked the buffet not to be brought out until 8.30pm as the main meal had been at 5pm and we did have catering for the full 120 by way of a hot and cold buffet. A "respectable" amount was left over, as my mother would say.

The wedding cake, however was alive and kicking for 2 years after the event

skintchick

We catered for about 70 people in the evening when we had 120 people there in total, 90 of whom were at the wedding breakfast. We had loads of food and no-one went hungry.

honeypop

If your venue is the sort of place to have high prices for the buffet, then they'll probably be the kind of place to have stipulations on what percentage of evening guests you MUST provide for. Ours said it had to be 80%, however I didn't agree seeing as they were serving the buffet at 9pm and we wouldn't have finished the meal until 6pm so not many people would be hungry by then. I also checked how much food they allowed per person when calculating amounts and found it was quite a lot and not many people would have all the items.
In the end I argued it down to 50%, this was for 80 day guests who had the meal aswell, and an extra 50 evening guests - and there was still LOADS of food left over (even with most guests being 'big eaters') and I was so glad I hadn't paid for 80% and wasted all that money.

Some things you need to consider:

What time the wedding breakfast is being served (the later it is, the less people will eat on a buffet) and what time the buffet is being served,

How much food they allow for per person,

An amount of no-shows at the reception (never seen a wedding with 100% attendance!),

If the venue has a minimum number you MUST provide for (a lot do).

thescouselander

Well the wedding brakefast will probably be at around 5 pm. The number of aguests will be something like 50 to the day and a total of 80 or 90 in the evening.

The venue stated they recommend catering for 100% of the guests (they would woud'nt they) but have only stupulated a minimum number of guests for the wedding brakefast - the evening is up to us it would seem.

At £13 per head for the buffet (which seems high to me) we definately don't want to be over doing it. I dont know why the buffet is so expensive, the rest of their prices are quite cheap.

KellyWelly

£13 a head for a buffet?!!!!

OMG!

Can't you negotiate the price per head? What are they providing for that price? I thought buffets were about £5 per head, my friends did their kids christening for £3.50 a head which included cold savoury items and sweet items. Some other friends did their wedding buffet for £6 a head at a fancy golf club and there was hot and cold items plus cakes etc and chocolate fountain.

thescouselander

KellyWelly wrote: »

£13 a head for a buffet?!!!!

OMG!

Can't you negotiate the price per head? What are they providing for that price? I thought buffets were about £5 per head, my friends did their kids christening for £3.50 a head which included cold savoury items and sweet items. Some other friends did their wedding buffet for £6 a head at a fancy golf club and there was hot and cold items plus cakes etc and chocolate fountain.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. The buffet is a bit expensive but that is offset by costs in other areas which means the all up cost came out OK. You can see why I want to get the numbers right though.

lizziebell*80

I'm pretty sure we didn't have an evening buffet at all, just the wedding cake (that my mum made) and another chocolate cake for those who didn't like fruit cake, with tea and coffee- there may have been some shortbread too.

Like you said we were all pretty full from the 3 course meal earlier and then a lot of people were then full of booze by that point!

I never got any of the cake- I missed it all (too busy drinking all the wine we paid for and people didn't drink with their meal)!

Go with what you want to do, not with what you think you are "expected" to do, that's waht we did and everyone had a good time at ours.

morg_monster

often venues will make you have an evening buffet as part of the contract, you have no choice. Our venue insists on catering for 80% but I got her down to 75% (wooo big difference!).
yes it is all a big swizz!