Does this sound like an okay party spread?

[bdaypartyfood]

Currently planning a surprise 30th birthday for my partner and catering it ourselves. It’s a family party so a mix of ages and some children there! Probably about 60-70 people coming.

I’ve never really done a buffet before but my current plan is this:

Ham sandwiches (1x platter)
Cheese sandwiches (1x platter)
Egg mayo sandwiches (1/2 platter)
Tuna sandwiches (1/2 platter)

Cherry Tomatoes (500g bag)
Celery
Carrots (1kg bag cut into sticks)
Cucumber (2 whole cucumbers)
Pepper (1 pack of 3 peppers)
All served with various dips

Mini sausage rolls (50)
Cocktail sausages (50)
Vegetable spring rolls (24)
quorn cocktail sausages (1 pack, only one vegetarian that I know of!)

Cheese & onion crisps
Sweet chilli crisps
Salted crisps
Tortilla chips
Onion ring crisps
(All one big share bag per flavour)

Chicken bites (72 pack)
Cheese pizza (x2)

Breadsticks (2 packs)
Coleslaw (1 pack)

Strawberries (2 packs)
Grapes (2 packs)
Watermelon (1)

Fairy cakes (24)
Mini flapjack (20)
Mini brownies (20)
Mini rolls (20)

Also doing some gluten free sandwiches and some gluten free cakes (only one person is wheat intolerant not coeliac so no cross contamination concerns)

Obviously a proper birthday cake as well!

Does this sound like a good spread of food? Too much or not enough?

Trying to stick to a budget where possible as the room hire was expensive!

Thanks in advance for advice!

I did think there aren’t any ‘main’ options that aren’t sandwiches (other than pizza and chips!) but I wasn’t really sure what else to offer? As others said I don’t want to offer too many options, but perhaps the options I’m doing are in the wrong places! What would you suggest for main options avoiding bread?

Their hot buffet is £10 per person at the venue and I definitely don’t have £700 to spend on food!

Will add on some more fruit though

I’m going to be honest, I don’t really eat coleslaw, but thought it’s often at buffet type meals. Perhaps I can sack that off entirely and add something else then

Cater for what 70 will each have on their plates, most will have at least 3 little triangle sandwiches, at least 2 sausage rolls.
Raw vegetables with communal dip will have limited appeal, and the communal crisps will be soggy within an hour.

A buffet for about 30 people I was at recently had loads of lasagna, chips, curry, rice, loads of sandwiches, vegetable soup, sausage rolls, goujons and prawns.

Pate doesn't have to be difficult 🤣. Pate is for everyone!

Does anyone follow the Rab C Nesbitt actor out of interest.Gregor Fisher. Sorry OP this is slightly derailing your thread as pate is not your thing but he does a good and very easy recipe for chicken liver pate which I tried. Much easier to make, pate, than I thought.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbQFaoIoAHk/?stkn=MXVzcjB5eW9lYnpucQ==

How about a more hearty ‘ make your own’ style meal overall? Big platters of cheese, couple of large hams, about 4 or 5 rotisserie chickens, big tubs of hummus for the vegetarians, then lots of sliced baguette, butter, maybe crackers, salad, crisps. Then you could just get some big cheesecakes/cakes/pies for pudding with a big jug of cream? I think that might work out cheaper and nicer than lots of little snacky things. Could you do a big tureen of soup?

In 45 years on this earth I have never seen prawn topped celery bites at a party!

Sorry, I also agree. Not enough food.

Everything else is finger food. Coleslaw you need a fork. So yeah, get rid or add more forky things. Like salads?

Okay so new plan at the moment is

Ham/Cheese sandwiches (2x platter of each)
Egg/Tuna sandwich (1x platter each)

Cherry tomatoes (1kg)
Celery (1)
Carrots (1kg)
Cucumber (3)
Peppers (6)

2x 4 selection of dips
Hummus
Tzatziki

mini sausage rolls (100)
cocktail sausages (100)
vegetable spring rolls (36)
quorn sausage (1 pack)

Cheese & onion crisps
Sweet chilli
salted
tortilla
onion ring
(all 2 sharing bags, maybe 3 of the plain)

Chicken bites (1kg pack)
Cheese pizza (x4)

Breadsticks
Olives (1 tub)

Large portions of chips from local takeaway (5 portions?)

Strawberries (2kg)
Grapes (1kg)
Watermelon (1)

Fairy cakes (24)
Mini flapjack (60)
Mini brownies (60)

Does this sound more sensible!

We don’t have the facilities to do lots of hot food unfortunately, so trying to go with things that can be cold or at least not hot!

I see the point about veg but don’t really see how else I can add greenery but I don’t think I’ve ever known crisps go soggy

Any dips, guacamole, sour cream, salsa etc ?.

Ah, just seen them. Ok you're all good now. It's the dips I go for. Have fun 😊

I know it is off topic, but i love watching his cooking videos, apparently it was his Dds idea so he could have a. Sm presence for a tour he was promoting.

To be fair you’ll spend £700 and a pile of stress I’d pay the venue! At least you can blame them if you run out!!

Salads of some description such as pasta salad or potato salad with cooked, sliced sausage (you can buy ready to eat continental style sausage), cubed peppers, spring onion. Chicken is not expensive and you could do skewers using chicken thighs. Your egg mayo doesn't have to be on sandwiches, for example.

Is there nowhere locally that will deliver pastie and peas? Cheese ones too or large meat and potato pie to serve?
There’s a huge family firm here that deliver with everything you need including cutlery and sides if you want them.
You could always add some salads.
Can you tell I’m northern?
A good cost effective option. Goes down well.
Some large party size cakes.

Cater for less than the number there.
My husband had his 60th at a pub. Loads of the buffet got wasted. Also had 2 young boys who grabbed food with their hands putting several people off eating.

Make sure there are plenty of serving spoons out before the food is served. That was another gripe of mine. Hot food served up but no utensils to dish it up with

Are your child guests older enough to be sensible with grapes? Over excited kids run around, you don’t want a choking hazard

I think £10 a head for a hot buffet is very reasonable. Buying a lot of ready-prepared foods in sufficient quantities is not going to be cheaper.

Keep it simple with fewer choices too.

I appreciate what you’re saying and in an ideal world I’d love to go for it, but I truly do not have £700 to spend on a birthday party

Five portions of chips between seventy people?

Do the guests like raw vegetables? I love them, and dips, and crisps, but wouldn't eat them when other people's fingers and food have been in them.
Crisps will be soggy in a room with so many people.

Your plan is very under catered.

Making sandwiches for 70 people on the day of a party is my idea of hell.

Big pork pies, big homemade sausage rolls to chop up, a gammon, cold chicken, big cheeses....far less labour intensive on the day. Pudding do jellies and a big chocolate mousse and cream and berries. Unless you are buying all the ready made party food from somewhere really cheap (which will show) its going to be much more expensive to buy ready made if you're buying good quality stuff.

I swear the OPs of these types of posts deliberately state a lack of food to get people frothing. I refuse to believe anyone with half a brain doesn't realise how much is actually needed.

Is it too late to ask people to bring things along and have a Jacob's join/fuddle/whatever term you use for a communal effort?

To follow up on my previous post here’s what I’d do specifically

remove the tuna or egg sandwiches and increase amount of others

remove the pepper - you’d need more and they’re expensive

swap your mixed dip trays for bigger amounts of a couple of dips (3 max) - eg hummus, sour cream and chive, salsa

i wouldn’t bother with the quorn sausages - might get confusing and spring rolls are fine but allow one per person

i am veggie so don’t know about sausages and sausage rolls, I’d probably only do one, since you have chicken also for meat but either way sounds like you need more

reduce crisp types from 5 to 3 and get 20g per person total

more pizza, at least a decent slice per person

Wouldn’t bother with chips also as per your later post

forget coleslaw and maybe even breadsticks

more of each fruit - depending on ages grapes are a choking hazard so personally I would remove (would half any cherry tomatoes also). Pineapple is nice and cheap vs berries etc

wouldnt bother with fairy cakes if there’s birthday cake and you also don’t necessarily need both brownies and mini rolls but I would say you need enough of each thing for nearly everyone to have one of everything.

I think no other mains is fine but you could do mini quiche otherwise

EDIT - cross posted with latest OP post but yes think you’re going in the right direction but keep going!

Still way too little food for that amount of people!