Buffet number - help!

hannah.nikki

We are having an informal buffet at our wedding reception and have 44 adults to cater for.
The menu selections are based on 'Price per guest' - how many guests would you tell them to make the buffet for? Sorry for the silly question but I am sure the venue co-ordinator said you dont necessarily say 44 guests to the caterers as they always make more than we need?! xx

wanchai_2

What time is your wedding, what time is the buffet, are guests going to be there all day and will this be their main meal? If so, I would cater for the full 44 tbh as they will all be starving.

It's different when it's only a buffet for evening guests, your day guests will hardly eat again after the wedding breakfast, so you would cater for your evening guests plus a few and not the two sets in total.

e.g. 100 day guests + 50 evening guests = evening buffet would be for about 60

hannah.nikki

That is what I was thinking. Our wedding is at 2 and buffet starting at 5. For evening guests, we haven't decided what to go for yet so not worried about numbers & catering for that .... just yet! x

Idiophreak

wanchai wrote: »

e.g. 100 day guests + 50 evening guests = evening buffet would be for about 60

Bah, humbugs...even as a day guest, I'd eat 10 people's worth of buffet.

My concern with buffets is that there's always some left...People are just too polite to take what they'd actually like to eat, they just take their "allowance"...You see a lot of things on the net saying "we ordered 60 heads and it fed 100 fine..." and I'm just not sure about it. I've been to weddings where there's been food left, but I've not felt full...

Think of it like this. There are 50 people at the wedding. There are 60 sausage rolls on a plate. How many do you have? Probably one.
You go to a wedding, with 50 people, and there are 110 sausage rolls on a plate..how many do you have? Probably two? In both cases, there's 10 sausage rolls left and the bride and groom probably totter off to the internet and say "there was still some food left over at our buffet!" - but at the one wedding I've had twice as many sausage rolls than at the other!

Honestly, I've only ever been to a couple of weddings where I've actually felt like I ate all that I wanted to...

hannah.nikki

I do know what your saying. Think I will cater for the 44 and play it safe. All the food should be gone, my Gran will be walking round with the serving platters asking everyone if they would like some more knowing my luck!

Hollie84

We was told aslong as you cater for 80% of your guests there will be more than enough.I had the same problem as we have 80 for our buffet but we have 38 of them eating a 3 course meal in the afternoon so we wasnt sure how many to cater for so we have said 70

wanchai_2

This is not an evening buffet though, Hollie!

lovecake

I would cater for the full 44 if I were you. We have received the 80% advice ( we are having 110 at night so are catering for about 85-90) but that only applies to the evening buffet as our day guests would have eaten at 5pm and not all of them will be that hungry again in the evening.

If the buffet is the 'main' meal of the day then I would say you need to cater for everyone - if you were having a sit down meal you wouldn't only feed some people their meal and not others so I would say you are right in thinking you should stick with 44 - especially if your Gran does the rounds! :rotfl:That is so sweet, I can imagine mine doing that too x

Stephb1986_2

I wasn't sure about this to be honest we're having 60 guests for the day and night but we're having a 4 course meal and a hog roast in the evening does that mean I can invite more to the evening because I've already fed the first 60 in the day??

Does that make sense?

Steph xx

lisajane8482

When we first booked our wedding we were having a buffet for the afternoon meal and was told we should look at catering for slightly more than we had invited, so were catering for 100 but only had 84 guests (11 of which were children). The main reason for this though is that my family are big eaters and at my aunts wedding (in the same place) they had catered for the exact number of guests and had to use some of the evening buffet to make sure everyone got fed.

That said on the evening there was loads of food left over.

Maybes talk to your caterer and ask their opinion.

PinkPrincess83

My wedding is at 3 and we are aiming to sit down about 5.30 and we have 41 guests for a sit down buffet and I plan on catering for everyone. I think when its an evening buffet people tend to turn up about 7/8 having had a chance to have a bite to eat and therefore eat less, but the day guests wouldnt have had much of an opportunity so will be hungry.

In the evening we have a total of about 80 guests and I will only cater for about 65 as 42 would have eaten a reasonable portion only a few hours before.