Your thoughts on evening buffet?

Personally I think you should have one - it would break up the evening somewhat & give your evening guests something as well.... we catered for half our guests but realistically about 30% still would have been plenty of food. x

If I'm honest, that's a big old gap between dinner and a late snack in a hotal room, especially when there is drinking involved. I'd be hungry, although not necessarily starving Would your venue let you provide, say, a cheese cake (or they might do one for you) where the cost would be significantly less and it would be a little quirky? I have seen prices for about £150 to feed 80 people, although there are many here who could give you more accurate details. Throw that out + some crackers/grapes and the cupcakes and you might cover the evening snackers.

Is there any way you can cut down your evening buffet? We were originally going to be about £8 per head for our evening buffet, but we've changed it to Bacon and Lorne Sausage Rolls with teas and coffees instead which makes it £3 a head instead.

How many people are you catering for for £1000?

Can you cut back on the provided alcohol during the wedding breakfast, for example?

Sorry slight miscalculation...we're catering for about 60 people @ £9 per head so £540 - was looking at another costing!

Its still loads tho and more than we wanna pay....am looking at a sandwiches/chips option....

Aj - no we've not got that much booze and for me thats more important than evening food x

I was having the same thoughts as you blueeyedgirl....do we REALLY need an evening buffet? Then I thought about it logically, if we were evening guests we'd sort of 'expect' there to be one and with the amount of fizzy pop that get consumed at wedding parties food is always a good idea to soak it up! HTH? x

Our package included an evening buffet for 75% of our day guests which was about 49.

They tried to get us to pay for 75% of the total day and evening guests (another 49 heads @ £15 each) but we said no and there was still food left over.

That's your choice, but I have to say I find it rather bizarre.

You don't have to say that at all.

How is that helpful to the OP? Just because you find it bizarre, it's clearly something that she wants to do.

OP - I don't think you've mentioned whether you're having separate evening guests or not. I'm guessing perhaps not as you haven't mentioned them. We were at a wedding on Saturday at which the main meal finished at, if I remember, around 7.30. By midnight, I would have eaten something if it was there, but I wasn't starving. OH on the other hand wanted to stop at the kebab shop on the way home as he was starving!

I really like Footlong's idea of a cheese cake. As long as your venue allows it, you could do it quite cheaply yourself. I'm planning on speaking to a local deli rather than buy in a "wedding" cheese cake. YOu could also get crackers and chutneys etc from the supermarket.

eliz9390 - fizzy pop lol! Yea i think we'd like it too....damn it! Also looking into a cheeseboard option, love a bit of cheese!

WSS.

A few extra evening guests - maybe 20 absolute maximum, so not many.

I would way prefer more booze at a wedding breakfast and basic evening buffet than less booze and more sausage rolls - but thats just me!

It is your day after all, and you should have it how you want. We've up-ed (if that's even a word) our drinks package and downgraded our evening buffet so we can offer a drink to our evening guests on their arrival.

Are guests able to buy food during the evening from your venue if you aren't providing enough for them?

I'd certainly find it bizarre being expected to pay £6 or whatever for a bar snack to get through the evening, rather than buying a drink or two from the bar.

As others mentioned, if people are drinking all night but not eating, then they're far likely to get drunk than having some food to soak it up.

You don't need to say at all, we all know that you are against alcohol.

If it helps, I saved £735 by not catering for extra in the evening and spent £1,500 on a free bar... hic!

Me too. What kind of weddings have you been too where people have sat down in the middle of an evening reception for a basket of scampi and chips?

We're doing this too, for a traditional finger buffet at our venue its £14.95 a head and you have to have a minimum of 60% of total evening guests so it worked out over 2 grand for a buffet! So we asked if we could have bacon butties, sausage butties and chip cones and they agreed. Its now £6.50 a head so only coming to £975. x

We're definitely having one, but it's quite light - Wedding cake, mini scones, mini pasties, bread, meat platter, chunky chips. We'll take a view on the quantities when we've got the RSVPs as we'll be in a better position to judge how much those who've replied will want to eat, but probably going to feed 75% as it's quite a light buffet. We've also got a really good deal from our caterers for that.

Probably going to try and source a cake of cheese as well as it's something I really fancy, and I love cheese!

I love the idea of a cheese cake-cheese boards are my fav, I'd be delighted to have this in the evening!Now you've got me going to the fridge..!

We had this as our 'cake' - 11kg of cheese. We served it in lieu of a buffet with crackers, fruit, chutneys etc on personalised cheese boards made by Pa CB alongside lashings of port!

I had the same dilemma regarding the evening buffet as we're not eating the main meal till around 5, but one member of my partners family in particular was not impressed she couldn't feed her face twice in the day lol. We decided to pluck for the cheese and biscuits as it was £12.00 per head (5 items per guest) for there buffet and that was spring rolls and prawn toast ? Now there charging us £10 per head (so nice of them!) Which I still thought was a tad steep as it's still £1000 for 100 people...and we have 150 lol.

We have to cater for every guest in our shitty venue- if i could change venues i would- our basic menu is £16.50 p.head... our meal is served at around 3pm ish so we'll be hungry horses by around 9 lol