How many for a buffet?

I think they say that you should cater for 80% of your total number of guests! Don't quote me on that though! I'm sure someone more helpful will be along soon! ?

I think for a buffet it is recommended that you cater for 70% of your guests, so perhaps between 80-90. It may also depend what you are planning to have in the buffet. I would imagine they would try and encourage you to cater for more people £££!

You should cater for 90%, so on 120 that would be 108.

Hi i was advised to add the number of day guests to the number of night guests and divide by 3. so in your case u could look at catering for 40 people. i would probably say tho to cater for the amount of extra evening guests you have coming so 60. ignore the hotel iits your money not theres xxx hope this helps xx

Whoever gave you this advice was not helping you. Cater for 40 when there'll be 120 people there? That's madness! Nowhere near enough to go round! We had 90 to our evening do. We catered for 81 and everything went. If we'd only catered for 30 we'd have had a lot of disgruntled guests!

Zippy, my Mum's done catering on quite a large scale. Rule of thumb is to cater for 90%. If you're trying to keep costs down, knock this down slightly, but with 120 at your evening do I really wouldn't be catering for less than 100 if I were you.

We were told between 75-100%. We are having a late ceremony and a fairly early buffet so will be catering for 75% on the basis that our guests won't be majorly hungry. Plus we have a sweet buffet so am sure guests will indulge in that!

What are your timings for the day?

We've been told to cater for 50%, however, we only have about 20 additional guests for the evening, and as the buffet will be served only 3 hours after the wedding breakfast people shouldn't be too hungry. Plus we've providing a lot of different food for the evening buffet (rather than just sandwiches, for example) so I don't anticipate any problems.

I think the time between your sit down meal and your buffet will effect how much you need. If people have only had a big meal a couple of hours earlier they're not likely to want much. If they're eating at 1ish then they could be starving by 8pm.

I agree with this. When we went to a wedding last year, I only vaguely remember seeing the buffet. Certainly didn't eat any of it as I was still really full from the dinner. Don't remember the cake being dished out either, but I was dancing a lot and looking after my 3 1/2 year old. I know this was the same for my other half and my MIL (not the dancing bit though!).

OUR venue says we have to cater for minimun 50% but recommends 2 thirds. dont know if that helps much but may or may not give you a rough idea.x

I'm catering for 100 but ordering for 80 - the hotel even told us what option to go for so we dont order too much! (7 items max)

Ours was a bit different because we had a hot carvery with our main buffet so we catered 100% for the meat/veggie options and then 90% for everything else. And this allowed for seconds for some of the huge eaters. For the evening we catered for 50% and we had loads of food left over.

I think though it depends on what they are serving and how filling each item is.

We are having 80 and catering for 60.

Hi there

The buffet in the evening, really depends on what food is being served during the day and at what time. I have been to many weddings, and when the evening buffet comes out, people either leave it as they are too happy drinking / dancing, and hte people that have eaten during the day, are normally not that hungry.

Also, i know when i get invited to an evening do, i am not there for the food, as i know it will only be nibbles, not a 3 course meal, so people should have eaten a large meal before they attend.

I would only cater for about 50% if you are trying to keep your costs down, that is what i am going to do.

We will be eating about 4 - 3 course meal followed by coffee & chocolates and the wedding cake on the lawn. Evening guests arriving at 7.30 and buffet about 9.30

Our Hotel recommended that we cater for 85% of the guests

We had 120 to the day, had a 3 course meal at 4.30, finishing about 6.45. Then had an extra 45 or so for the evening, served evening buffet at 9ish - it was bacon and sausage sandwiches, salad, finger food - mini quiches, samosas etc and we had wedding cake. We catered for 150 and it pretty much all went - maybe our guests are just greedy (!) but I think because it was snacky stuff too people ate more than if it had been something more substantial.