Cost of an adult party

[Ki0612]

Has anyone thrown an adult party? 30th, 40th,50th? How much roughly did it cost? Hall hire, buffet, dj altogether. Was thinking of having a 40th party later in the year if restrictions allow and finding it really hard to gauge the cost.

Pick your budget & then you’ll know how many you can invite.

Great idea,People will love a party cost Depends on your venue tbh.

Are you doing a free bar or paid bar? Or wine on table and a fixed tab on the bar, when tab exceeded guests buy in drink
An External caterer or a hall and you bring food

I’ve been to various scenarios and they all worked
Caterers and food laid out in a buffet. Help self to soft drink & alcohol
I imagine you’ll get a good price given all the lockdown

Defo not a free bar, buffet, dj, hall. It's really hard to guess a cost especially as everywhere in that industry is shut just now...

Will you get a caterer or do your own food?
Most pubs with the space or community halls would be able to accommodate your party

It's a piece of string, you could make some sandwiches and have a teenager to DJ for £100, or you could get a good buffet for £15 a head, £300 for a DJ, or anything in between.

Set a budget,contact venues,see what’s the pricing coming back

I found village hall costs were often listed on their websites. Can be anything between £50 - couple of hundred. Buffet is usually between £10-£15 per head, depending on how fancy you want the food / how much stuff you want. We had a street food van for £8 per head, supplied our own cakes and extra salads, plus some nibbles on the table.

I'm afraid I have no idea about DJs - we did our own playlist on spotify & hired the hall's sound system (think that was £50).

You will need to hire tablecloths, maybe also cutlery. You can still get free glass hire from Waitrose (I think they ask for a small deposit). You can either get bottled water, or hire water jugs, or buy a couple of drinks dispensers (usually about £20 each, I sold mine afterwards) and keep them topped up with tap water.

If it's a family party and there will be children, have half an eye on whether there is a play area outside, or the hall might get trashed from over-excited kids with nowhere to run.

Companies should still be able to quote. Church hall websites will still have prices.

For a buffet you could do canapés/pre-prepared food from a supermarket and pay waitresses to serve (I’ve done that in the past) or you could get a food truck to come at a certain time (eg mobile fish & chips).

I’ve held parties with very different budgets, my 40th was 100 people fully catered with a bar, rented dance floor & DJ with a beautiful tent, that cost a lot. Daughter’s 21st fully catered DJ, wine & beer, no spirits, ended at 2am, £10k for 60. Other daughter’s party dinner for 35 ordered in advance from M&S and wine/beer, no DJ more like £300.

Just depends what you want to do.

I know really hard to think judge price...was hoping a few people would say I had 80 people it cost such amd such altogether....

we did our own playlist on spotify & hired the hall's sound system (think that was £50) great idea

Thanks so much for the replies!!! My other idea is hire a couple of lodges with close friends for the weekend. Which could end up costing less... And i might really like that as we've not been altogether in so long... I can price the cost of that easily...

Adjacent Lodges is a better idea, more personal.

@Ki0612

I know really hard to think judge price...was hoping a few people would say I had 80 people it cost such amd such altogether....

I've just dug out my spreadsheet. Minus the costs that you won't incur (our was a wedding, not a birthday):

110 people
Be about £600 to hire the hall without a wedding (this was more expensive; our most local hall was £50 for the day but no wedding licence);
Sound system £40
Street food van £800
Salad, cakes, some wine / water on tables £248
Posh nibbles £40
Tea / coffee / milk £27

We bought some nice food (e.g. normal teabags/coffee, not value, houmous & veg rather than crisps), so you could do it for less, but I reckon you could do it for £1,000 plus the venue for 110 people and leave everyone feeling stuffed / well-watered etc. As previous posters have said, you can adjust your budget to suit. We had more food than people could eat (loads of leftovers), had wine left over and people went out of their way to repeatedly say what a nice time they had, so it can't have been that bad

The thing that I hated the most was paying for the bloody table cloth hire - that was £108 for 12 on a 'return dirty' basis.

I did my 40th in the garden. I hired a small marquee with a floor. We also hired chairs and table. Thankfully it didn’t rain but it worked as in the evening felt quite contained! & we invited the neighbours (who we are friends with thankfully)
We went with a late afternoon start (as we know people had kids)
We brought from Amazon chair covers & table cloths & decorations. We pre-ordered ready made party food - wraps/sandwiches/cakes etc
We also hired large ice buckets and brought bottles of beer . We had a cask of beer. Also had premade gin & pims in large jugs. With water squash for the kids as well as soft drinks!
We also did late evening food - chicken & pizza. And vegetarian kebabs.
People did bring their own alcohol as well but funnily enough drank what was free 😂 we were left with lots of cheap wine!
I think altogether it was around £1k.
But we had a cracking day and was a very chilled party. And falling into bed wasn’t to far away.
We had friends stay over and everyone helped tidy it away in the morning.

We spent £100 on hall hire, £90 on DJ, £30 on decs, £60 on cake, £600 on food for buffet for 60 people for my 40th. No free bar but tons of food. It cost a fortune but was ace! I didn't have a separate present so the party was my present (to myself!)

Oh, and I didn't hire crockery - that was expensive - it was cheaper to buy compostable plates, cutlery, paper cups and just chuck it all in the green bin. Some of it went to landfill (the more people drank, the less they cared!), but I was slightly comforted by the fact that it'll still break down in landfill.

Love garden idea but our house is too small and its December. This has been so helpful thanks for replies!!!

My DSis did this last year at a village hall. They had their own sound system so she played her own playlist through that. She had caterers for the buffet and provided booze from the supermarket. Great party and not eye-wateringly expensive.

A DF had a milestone party but wanted a smaller party so hired a photographer so she had a lovely album of some quite beautiful candid photos.

Booked the lodges. Decided would prefer that as doesnt work out more expensive. Thanks all.