Is it cheap not to cater?

OP- Admit it! This is YOUR birthday and you are sounding out your ridiculous plan and pretending its a 'friend'. Given some of your replies, I really think this is the case.🙄

Have a big lunch and try to steer the pub crawl through Maccy Ds at some point in the evening

If I were invited and actually went, I'd bugger off after the function room and go for a curry or some such. Then probably bog off home.

I’m sorry, but this just sounds so rubbish 😆 nobody wants to eat a proper meal before 4, you’re then hanging around in a random room with nothing to do for 2 hours (food is super handy when you don’t know that many other people), before going out on a pub crawl that sounds akin to the kind of chaos most of us left behind in Freshers’ Week. It’s not a party, it’s really tight.

She should either stump up for an actual buffet, catered cheaply from Costco, and then do this juvenile sounding pub crawl, or just agree to meet everyone in a pub for drinks.

I'd definitely be staying in and washing my hair that night.
If I was the host, I would supply a full buffet and at least a couple of drinks per person.
As it stands, sounds like an absolutely terrible night!

I think the decorated function room and official invites, without even so much as a free glass of Prosecco for guests, is to ensure the birthday girl gets gifts (and yes I did see the bit where she said no gifts on the invite, but people will still bring gifts and she knows it).

She’ll also be counting on a load of drinks bought for her and lined up at each bar, and probably her food too.

It’s basically a cheeky fucker “pay for my birthday because I’m too cheap to” party which isn’t a party.

That's a bald statement.

By 40 I would say it is reasonable to expect a function like this to cater food. Maybe something to nibble and a free glass of champagne for a toast. I don’t see the purpose of this at all except to sit in a room with 40 people (if they bother showing) and talking awkwardly as no one knows if food is or isn’t there (not everyone reads fine print on things), all the while having to get own food and drinks.

Also by 40, many will be parents and may have organised a babysitter, only to come out to such a dud night. I think 40 friends will drop to single digits after this.

This isn’t going to work as there’s no opportunity later in the night to eat. Unless you are playing pub golf you will end up having 1 drink in each pub as it will take that long for everyone to get served, never mind ordering food. The times are either going to force people to eat really early at lunch time then starve or leave at 6 to find something to eat.
I think she shouldn’t have told anyone she’s hired a function suite and said she had reserved some tables, it doesn’t really matter where the tables are.

Me and all my school/uni pals turned 40 last year and this is a very unusual set up both in timing, location & catering.

In my group...

#1 Some people hired a table or two in a pub and then people got their own food.

#2 Others had a meal with their besties (& then their partner / parents paid)

#3 Some hired a room from early evening and provided food (& some fizz)

#4 Some hired a room from later evening (8pm) and it was clear it was just for drinking.

I did #3.

Eat before 4pm, so at lunchtime?! 😂

I know, plus starting at 4pm!

It's not a party at all. Hiring a room, providing no food and then going on a pub crawl is bizarre.

No it wouldn’t, the host is providing nothing except some decorations for herself and some reserved tables. Nibbles is the very least needed if there’s not even a drink

To eat before 3.30 when they leave to go to the venue or you expect some people to buy their own food at a party you’ve invited them to. But only some people so it’s not a collective experience?

That was my first thought too. Turn up, sit down, do what? Chuck out time 2 boring hours later? Are you providing drinks and nibbles at least?

I can't get my head around it either 😕
If you want a pub crawl for your birthday then have one but don't do a half arsed 2-hour "party" at 4pm beforehand.

Sounds awful. Eat before 4pm? Sit in a function room with no entertainment or food, why?
I bet people bring gifts. What tight wads.

I am just imagining 40 slightly bewildered people all in a function room for 2hrs with no discernable actual function taking place.

And just as people start ordering their own food, 6pm would roll around and birthday girl would up and leave them there and go on a "pub crawl" and those eating would be evicted from the function room along with their food.

Bonkers but to each their own.

I can't get my head around this. What is the point of the function room? It would probably take longer to decorate than the two hours it's hired for. Yes, I know it will be decorated before and not during. Then the decorations have to be taken down. Are the pub staff taking the decorations down? That's usually the responsibility of whoever hired the room. Is everyone expected to help or wait around while that's being done?
What if everyone wants to eat? Would the pub be able to cater for forty extra people without notice?
Then the pub crawl. If not everyone can get into the same pub, what's the point them all being invited?
It all sounds a bit shit.

I wouldn’t host a party if I couldn’t put food on.

I have a significant birthday coming up but because nice food is so expensive and as I wouldn’t want to go to Weatherspoons or host at home somewhere nice comes with a high price tag so you are left with the awkward situation of inviting people somewhere nice and either accept you will stump up the full cost of a nice meal, at least a buffet and some drinks or a first drink, cake and nibbles, or the awkward situation of everyone paying to attend with no free food or drinks.

This is nonsense timing.

I think yes you need to provide food, because people won’t be able to eat on a ‘pub crawl’. Packet of crisps while standing or fish and chips if they have time to stop at the chippy, but it’s not like people will get a table and sit down to eat while everyone else leaves for another pub. Friends did a 50th birthday at the village pub and pub put out sandwich trays, sausage rolls, brownies and flapjacks and that was perfectly sufficient (followed by cake later in the evening).