To be considering doing own christening buffet for 70ish people?

[Mummyof287]

DD2 is getting christened in August, and I'm currently planning the celebration after, which will be at a local village hall.

I'm not skilled in the culinary sense, DH is good at cooking but not a baker really, and we are pretty short on time with a 6mth old and 5yo, so if we did the food it wouldn't be fancy...possibly partly homemade by myself or my mum- cheese straws, cupcakes, sausage rolls or scones perhaps,but definitely alot shop bought too...probably upto 70ish people coming plus kids.

It appeals to me as it would save us loads of money and we can choose ourselves what to put out and have a wider selection.

For Dd1's christening we had a caterer who was very reasonably priced at £200-300ish i think, which included staying to do teas and coffees and cutting the cake (which we are getting made again) but she no longer does it, and the quotes this time ive got so far £7-9 per head minimum) mean the total would be about £500.

I want the food to be reasonably tasty and good quality and not look skimpy...after all people have made the effort to attend, afew possibly from some distance so feel its only fair to provide a nice spread.

Am I being unreasonable to think us doing it would be do-able...or should I just swallow the £500ish it would cost me to get caterers in and save myself the stress of buttering a gazzillion sandwiches and baking/buying/setting it all up?!?

70 people at a christening! Holy moly! You need the lord Jesus Christ there himself to share out the bread and fish.

Greggs platters.
sandwich's and donuts!
Sorted 😂

Greggs or Morrison's sandwich platters which you can collect as late as possible on the day , sausage rolls , cup cakes , cocktail sausages, cheeses, fruit and bread. Keep it simple.

If you have 70 people at the christening you're probably going to outnumber the regular congregation ! Is the church big enough?

I've catered for thirty people several times. I wouldn't even briefly consider doing it for 70. As others have mentioned you need an awful lot more space, storage space cooking/heating options, timing becomes more important, trying to make sure everything is ready at the same time. The logistics of transporting and carrying everything.

Really, it is not worth the headaches. Don't do it.

I went to a self catered christening years ago, half of the guests got food poisoning. I was so poorly and she was mortified. Its very difficult to that much food at the correct temperature to be honest.

Plus kids

Aside from the fact I do think 70 odd people for a christening is OTT, you should cut the numbers down if you cant afford to cater for 70 people. With two young children there is no way in hell I would be making / organising food for 70 people. Unless you could rope some family into help?

For big club competitions (50 people e.g referees etc needing food) that my DC are involved in, me and other parents / teens have worked together to prepare / dish out the food but there is no way I could manage it on my own.

I did my DS christening last August in the church hall also. I ordered the food to order option from Sainsburys. If you Google Sainsburys food to order the link will come up and ask you to select your local store. They have so much options but we went for sandwiches, pasta and a salad. To keep costs down as much as I possible I bought the same trays they come in from Amazon and cooked 100 frozen sausage rolls myself the night before, bought 4 boxes of cocktail sausages from Tesco myself to put in one tray, I got bags of tortilla chips and loaded a tray with them and then also loaded another tray with 2 giant tubs of haribo for the kids.

I collected the Sainsburys food the day before and put in the fridge. The rest wasn’t a problem as I only actually cooked the sausage rolls. If you want cupcakes then Tesco does a pack of 18 (chocolate, vanilla and pink icing) for £5. One trick is to get fancy ‘christening’ sign cupcake toppers from Amazon and then put them into the store bought cupcakes. No one will know the difference and it saves so much money.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

I also do not think 70 people is wrong. If you have 70 people who love you and make an impact on your life then don’t cut those people down. The church likely has room for them and sometimes you can have a christening that is not during the normal service/mass times. At my DS christening we had the option of not doing it during the mass but we choose to and we had the same numbers and everyone fitted fine.

I've done this sort of thing loads. It is entirely possible, but unless you have a fair amount of experience, don't start with a do for 70!

Can you do some basics and then ask people to bring and share?

We are having our twins (postponed 2 years thanks to Covid) christening next weekend. We’ve got coffee & biscuits at church before the service (the church provide this which is lovely) then we’ve booked the function room at the local pub (across the road from the church so literally on the doorstep) and booked them to do the catering for us. It’s costing £6/head and we’ve booked for 50 (have got 36 adults and 16 kids of primary school age or younger attending). We have bought multi packs of party ring biscuits, share bags of tortilla chips and crisps and pots of jelly on top of the buffet and cake. That’s the only prep I’m prepared to do as it will be far too much with people travelling a couple of hundred miles to be making sandwiches or trays of cakes the day before - not to mention, as others have said, having the space to store stuff and it not give everyone food poisoning!!

I think you'll regret attempting to do it yourself.

Oooohhh! Challenging but totally possible.

It comes down to careful food choices.

If you choose sandwiches, buy a platter, do not make them yourself. Calculate carefully how long it would take to make the sandwiches and then triple it. That will be close.

It is the logistics of prepping, transporting and heating that are challenging for that many people. That is where caterers come into their own.

And I should also say that £500 for 70 sounds pretty good to me.

We did a half way option between catering ourselves and paying for a caterer.

It was for about 40 people but we bought a selection of prepared sandwiches from the supermarket along with a number of quiches, bread, cheese platters etc.

It was obviously more expensive than making stuff from scratch but a lot less than a caterer. We just had to open all the packaging and stick everything on plates. The church hall, where we had the christening reception, had some big fridges for storage.

70 people is a lot. Ultimately, how do you value your time? If you have the time, do it! If not, pay someone else for their time and do something else.

Just get a MN chicken and a massive salad and you are good to go.

Try and get majority of food catered. I find the comments on 70 people really interesting. In our family and for most others I know, a Christening is a huge deal and everyone in the family attends. Aunts, uncles, cousins etc.

I think its doable. Either Costco or M&S for everything. I've hired the village hall before now and it had a full working kitchen so is get friends to pick the food up and drop it there. Set the tables up in advance.

Morrisons catering for 70:
£8 sandwich platter (6-8 servings) = £80
£8 savoury grazing box = £40
£6 crudities platter = £60
christening cake = £50
tea/coffee/squash = £10

I think you could do the whole thing for £250. Be even cheaper if you made the sandwiches yourself and did the veg sticks yourself. Maybe more like £150-£175.

I wouldn’t make my own buffet for a party but I have ordered a hot pot from a local bakers a couple of times . I’ve also ordered those trays of sandwiches you can get them from Morrisons/ Costco they are really nice and much cheaper than caterers . Get a few nibbles and your done .

What time is the christening?

ours is 2pm so once we’re back from the church it’ll be almost 3pm - so we are just doing ‘picky bits’ - veggie sausage rolls, fruit platter, the cake, biscuits, veg & dips, cheese & maybe scones. Plus crisps for the kids, champagne and soft drinks.

I think that’s all that’s needed - but MN please tell me if I’m wrong as I only have two weeks…

I did either Waitrose or M&S (can't remember which!) 'Entertains' catering for DD's christening. It's good quality but cheaper than a caterer. I got it delivered to the church hall that morning - so no problems with trying to store it at home. A friend met the delivery van and got it into fridge/set up. I then paid two teenagers to make tea and coffee and wash up during the session.

It was low stress, worked well and meant we had time to enjoy talking to friends and family.

Found the food choices on the website were clearly labelled with how many people each thing fed, it was easy to choose things for certain dietary requirements. And they arrived on plastic platters/bowls that they could be served straight from so less hassle - it was all recyclable.

Where are your guests coming from? I remember being a bridesmaid a couple of times in the 1970s, my mum wasn't the type to even offer breakfast let alone make sure I'd had something so the 3pm buffet was my breakfast lunch and tea.

OP

I agree with all the people saying buy supermarket platters. I'd also do something hot, I know it's in the middle of summer but if it's a rainy day something hot is welcome, nothing fancy, just some soup or a chilli, you can hire a soup 'cauldron' from a catering company.

Wow thanks so much for all the helpful replies! Gave me lots to think about and confirmed what i was thinking, particularly about all the transportation, setting up and storage.Would hate to give anyone food poisoning, and i really dont want to spend the day stressing about organising the food and not be able to relax and enjoy it.
So I've managed now to find a local lady who seems good and does the catering even cheaper at £5/person, so we are going with her.I'll save the self catering for DD's birthday parties where its half the numbers and kids, who don't eat much!

Confused by the comments about us having 70 people...DH has a big family, I have lots of friends...IMO it's a big life event, and would have the same guest list as a wedding would ie: everyone you know friends and family wise.I appreciate some have small gatherings of just close family instead but we like to have everyone involved and make it a nice big celebration :)