Evening guests / catering for the evening buffet.

Our caterer has suggested catering for 80% so that's what we are doing.

I never eat the eve buffet at weddings, always too busy throwing shapes on the dance floor and some people will just nibble so no need to cater for everyone.

It may depend on how many will have eaten during the day too as presumably they will be less hungry than those who are just evening guests.

We are going to cater for 75% as we have been to loads of weddings with so much waste it could feed an army of teenagers and to weddings where there was not enough food. It also depends on the timings for the day, how long between finishing the wedding reception and evening food? If it's too late evening guests will have eaten at home.

We are also catering for 75% of our evening guests. I have been to so many weddings in the past where there has been so much food wastage so I think this is a good idea. Our venue also states that due to Health & Safety they are only allowed to leave the food out for a maximum of 2 hours so we are also toying with the idea of putting half of the food out quite early for when the evening guests arrive (presumably our all day guests will still be quite full from dinner) and then the other half put out a bit later on in the evening for anyone thats a bit peckish to pick on. That said, we are also having a sweetie bar all evening for people to help themselves to.

My mum is a food is love type person and wants to ensure there is enough food for everyone to gorge themselves on. I think 75% is a fair number seeing as we are having canapes, a four course sit down & edible favours.

For day guests, most are staying the night before as it is a 16room hotel we have block booked for the Friday & the Saturday, and Full English Breakfast is complimentary both mornings, so a lot of them will have a big brekkie, followed by a four course followed by an evening nibble.

We are however serving sausage/bacon ciabattas so should I ensure there is atleast one each in case growing boys SCOFF THE LOT?!?!

Ok I realise I didn't help, but I shall follow and note down all advice eagerly.

As has been said many times before on other posts, the rule of thumb for a buffet is cater for 80% of your guests (75% isn;t thatfar away) this allows for people not turning up and also for the bigger/smaller eaters.

Our after party venue was brilliant as they told us we don't need to cater for everyone. He was very honest in how much food their buffet provides and that 80% will be plenty, which I thought was rather good for the venue We'd only ever intended catering for 80% anyway lol. This is based on 7 choices and that they will do one of each choice for each person and a few more besides so overall it would be plenty. If you're doing a BBQ and plan on doing 1 of each item for each person then 75-80% will be plenty.