How many to cater for

Our venue recommended that if your giving people a big feed ie afternoon meal then they wont eat and most people pick so they said only cater for around 60% of the actual guests, so cater for around 60 people?

Cater for about 60 - 70 % of your guests and you'll find people will eat before they come.

x

Dont forget you will have fed some people and those who are just coming to the evening will eat somethign before they turn up so i would cater for 50% of everyone there. This is what we are doing for our wedding evening buffet at the suggestion of the manager (who could have suggested a much higher percentage to get more money). And as my dad pointed out if all the food goes, then so what people stop going back for seconds!

I don't want to be the negative one here but.....

....I went to a wedding once, arrived at 7pm but it was an hour away so left around 5:45pm (before dinner) the bride and groom went on the assumption that people would have eaten before, and that wedding breakfast people wouldn't want to eat masses again - they were wrong and the buffet ran out before the whole party got to eat. So we went without food.

The venue weren't to blame - they had provided as ordered and therefore nothing could be done.

So I would be very wary of ordering 50% - 70% or 80% maybe, but I think 50% is very risky!

To have the bigger suite at our venue we have to cater and pay for a minimum of 130 people, this is how many people will be invited anyway but any shortfalls we still have to pay per head for 130!

We havent discussed it yet with our venue, It is only a small family run buisness and we talked about guest numbers and I just presumed we would cater for all approx 100 .....since we have had price list and its 22.50 per head so want to be sensible about how many we cater for, dont want to waste money as well as food! Will prob cater for 70% to be on the safe side. Thanx everyone for your help. xx