Guest list and evening food questions

I dont know how hog roasts work but we are having the 'average' buffet of sandwiches, goujons etc & we are catering for 60%. The buffet allows 6 pieces per head but venue says catering for 60% is fine & there is usually left overs for later munchies!

I would ask the hog roast supplier.

Our evening buffet will cater for 80% of guests.

Hey Dollyrockerz...I know what you're going through because I've had it from my side of the family ? Our day invites have increased by 8 to keep the peace and thankfully the OH has been fine with it. Our venue have recommended catering for 75% of the total number of guests or half portions for day guests and full portions for evening guests. I hope that helps x

My MIL wanted to invite 25 people to the evening, friends and work mates etc... I wasnt overly happy about this, but agreed as she offered to pay for the evening buffet.

Now Ive been there and done it, I can honestly say that it didnt matter to me that they were there in the evening, I didnt even really notice and they stayed in their own group, all had a fantastic nice and all gave very generous wedding gifts and lovely messages for us.

We catered for 70% of our guests as we had a sweet buffet and served cake in the evening too.

I have seen numerous wedding menus that say 100% catering for hog roasts and bbqs... I would check with your venue they may have set percentages.

If you are struggling and MIL2B keeps adding numbers just explain nicely and ask if she can help towards the cost.

I don't have a problem with OHs parents inviting people in the evening, I'm just bitter that I had to bump my family for people I don't know and OH doesn't really know and that more people have been snuck onto the list over what we agreed originally. I text OH earlier and he said 'just include those on the original list' so I will have to check who the extras are.

My parents and OHs parents have both contributed to the wedding and we are paying for the rest (it's about a 30/30/40 split if you see what I mean with us being the 40) so I'm happy to accomodate their friends/family in the evening, we just can't afford to pay for more than 50-55 to the day and the list is currently at 63 for some reason.

Thanks for the advice on the evening feeding, funnily enough the venue just rang and made an appointment for us to come and go over all the details next week so I'll ask what they usually recommend.

Hi,

I had a similar issue, when we first got engaged, the mil instantly said 'don't worry i'll write you a letter of all our friends and family you have to invite.' to which i replied, that we knew of all h2b's family and which family friends we wanted there so it wasn't necessary. Her face said it all, but i stood firm, weddings are expensive as it is, without adding people who we don't care for.

We are inviting parents friends that we like and enjoy the company of.. any one else is a no.

Both parents are giving us a small contribution, but i don't think it gives them the right to tell you who to invite. My close cousins would always come before h2b's distant relatives.

The evening percentage, ive been wondering about this, catering for 100 is silly after giving them a 3/4course meal.

I think ill do 70/80% of the total numbers, this will be 150 for us.

xxxx

I agree. My dad may have royally pissed us off by the numbers and 'types' of people he has invited to the evening (i.e. grandparents' cousins?!?!) but bumping off close relatives from one side to accommodate less-close relatives on the other seems utterly, utterly wrong. Additions are one thing... but demanding you move YOUR cousins in favour of HER cousins seems ridiculous.

Apologies if I sound harsh... not my intention at all... but are you able to put your foot down on this now?

I know this isnt quite the same as the hog roast but we went to an evening wedding reception on Friday and its made us really rethink our evening food if anything we are going to OVER cater. They had fish and chips cones and bacon and sausage baps plus the wedding cake and a sweetie buffet but had clearly not catered for 100%. We didnt get anything at all, and lots of the day time and evening guests were walking round saying they were starving! We stopped at the chippy on the way home. I would be mortified if these were my wedding guests! We have now decided to cater for 120% drunk people need fodder!

Have you sent your invitations yet? If not, I would sit down with all concerned and tell them the dilemmas of the guest list and decide together who's getting invites. And I would certainly make the people who are suppossedly not coming part of the numbers until you recieve a decline- there are people we are inviting who we know aren't coming because we wanted to let them know that they are invited anyway(but these were people close to us not randoms). I think it is easier when you are paying for the wedding yourself because you can be quite strict about saying you are fully in charge of the guest list and invites. When others are contributing it becomes really tricky because they feel they have a right to invite people. But they need to see it from all people's points of view. In my experience of my family and the guest list- both sets of parents are very demanding and aren't mindful of other people's needs. We are over numbers for the day function at the minute and I sat down with both sets of parents and explained the sitaution and said we need to make a choice about whos going, gave them the guest list with numbers of the proportions of people who are being invited. And they become a bit more reasonable when you have to start trading people off eg "If you invite great aunt Flo who you haven't seen for 20 years, it means I can't invite my best friend who I see every day". Might not work for you though. It's best done face to face though with all the facts and figures.

We are having a hog roast and we are paying for the pig rather than a per head amount. They've told us how many, on average, the pig would serve but whether we had 10 people or 100 people, the price would be the same because they are still cooking the same amount. Is this not how it's working for you?

Our venue suggests 70% of evening guests be catered for (a buffet), as you say many will have had a 3 course meal a couple of hours before anyway, so it's a bit wasteful to cater for everyone.

Any leftover stuff will come back to our room when we retire, with us as it's likely we won't have eaten anywhere near as much as we need to during the day. We'll also remind those travelling home after our day to take a doggy bag with them for the journey.

This is your wedding and its up to you to decide who you wanted to join and to be with you in this once in a lifetime event of your life. If other people really bother you, try to explain it to OH mother's that you are not really close to them.

The problem I have is that I have a LOT of couins, we're talking over 30 people when you add their partners, children etc. We just can't afford to invite them all, I can't cut OHs family since there would be none of his side present if I did. They are all coming down from Leeds for the day whereas my family are nearly all fairly local so it makes sense for them all to come.

I was ok with all that until more people started being snuck onto the list but I have decided that I won't be sending invites to the ones that have already said they won't be able to come and I will be checking why the list has suddenly got bigger and will not be inviting the 'extras' that have appeared.