To only serve snacks?

[EdgyCrow]

My daughters birthday party is 2-3.30 at home. We hired a bouncy castle (forecast to rain :( can they still use it?!). Is it ok to not to a proper meal as such but just do snacks? Thinking crisps/ crudites/ fruit platter/ sweetie plate for people to graze at or should I do more like pizzas/ sandwiches etc?

You definitely need pizzas/sandwiches.

Snacks are fine!

Bung some cheap pizza in the oven.

Snacks are fine providing you have made that clear. Otherwise parents will be banking on the kids being fed.

I wouldn't use a bouncy castle in the rain.

I wouldn’t mind either way, but putting out a couple of pizzas / basic kids sandwiches isn’t much effort really.

I don’t think it matters as long as you make it clear to everyone. Pizzas would be nice though …

Snacks are fine, I wouldn't expect anything more at that time of day

Do snacks and sandwiches

I’d do pizzas, mainly because my DC won’t touch any form of crudités. And it’s easy.

As other have said. Snacks are fine but you need to make that clear

Thanks everyone,
I'm happy to do something more substantial but with it being mid afternoon, wasn't sure if people would be expecting it. I might go down the pizzas route and do some fancier ones for the adults

I wouldn’t expect my kids to have lunch 2-3:30 though, they’d have eaten before then so snacks are fine? But yeah either way would make it clear on invite in case some assume it’s full lunch

Unless the party is around a meal time I wouldn't expect proper food. IMO, the kids are too excited to eat so the food gets wasted. Crisps, sweets and a drink are fine 🙂

My kids have never been to a birthday party where they weren’t fed regardless of the time of today. It’s the expected thing. It’s fine to serve snacks, just let the parents know so they can plan accordingly.

Hot dogs always went down well and there’s veggie versions

There's no way my kid would have gone through to lunch at 2-2.30 so snacks would be perfect.

I did this this year, after throwing away 90% of the sandwiches I made the year before and 75% of the pizza the year before that. Similar time of day so no one is actually needing a meal at that point (unlike a say 3.30-5.30 or 11-1 party). I made it clear on the invite and just put out crisps, biscuits, cucumber and birthday cake. No one complained, it cost less and far less got thrown away.

Couple of cheap pizzas of sandwiches is probably more cost effective. Sweets, crisps etc are expensive per gram. Fill them up on cheap stuff first