How many to cater for?

I have just catered for everyone who will attend the evening do including the ones who will have had a meal earlier on. Our meal starts at four and the buffet will not be till 9pm.

You may not necessarily have a choice, our venue states that we have to cater for a minimum of 75% of people that will be there in the evening (not just evening only guests).

Thanks all. AJ, we dont have a minimum requirement, our reception is in a hall and we are using outside caterers so its up to us really. I'm thinking maybe 70% so it doesnt look too stingy?

I catered for 70% and there was still food leftover. Remember that the day guests would have already eaten so will probably just pick at the evening buffet.

But they're not exactly going to count them through the door are they? If you tell them 80 people are coming and they cater for 60, if you actually have 85 or 90, they are never going to know!

They will by the number of places set out, due to the way our day is planned each person will need a glass at the very least for toasting during the speeches.

I will check with them though because if we can even just save another £100 it will help.

We may have told our venue a little fib regarding the number of evening guests.?

FWIW we catered for 75% and still had loads of food left over!

We had an evening buffet for 75% of our day guests included in our package. That worked out to be 49 heads.

We had additional evening guests, bringing the total to over 100 but we did not increase the food. There was still some left over.

IMO because you are only having small numbers in the day I would cater for 100% of the guests. I know when I have been invited to evening receptions in the past I tend to save myself for the buffet and then anticipate it being served then I eat tons.

Just had a look at the wedding brochure again for our venue, it says "Please note we cater for a minimum of 75% of guests attending the evening function."

Now, does that mean 75% of everyone at the evening, or 75% of the evening only and not those who were there in the afternoon?

Because 75% of 60 or 75% of 120 could save us a fair chunk of change.

In contrast, our evening reception is going to be fairly informal, I am not expecting everyone to arrive at a set time, I am not expecting all the day guests to stay late (several are elderly) and we expect there to be quite a lot of milling around between the music, bar, courtyard (if weather permits), and the buffet area. There is no point where everyone will be seated together, or be toasting together. We saved money on our buffet by designing our own menu, with the main purpose of getting the food we actually like, but when it was priced up it turned out cheaper than most of the set options. Generally if you are providing the type of food that requires eating with cutlery your venue will need a realistic headcount, as people will not want to share their forks!

I'd assume they mean 75% of everyone who will be attending the evening function eg 75% of the guests who will be physically at the evening do

I would take that as 75% of all guests present in the evening (so including those who have been there all day).

We we planning on lying to our venue in the beginning about the numbers for the evening if they insisited on us catering for the evening guests but as it happens we manage to convince them that we didn't need to cater!

You won't be able to tell a porky though AJ as you are seating everyone.