organising a christening - is £4.50 expensive for per head for a buffet?

[dancingtina]

hi all

We're having a big christening for our baby and are thinking of hiring a room (£50 for room hire) and then the caterers say prices start at £4.50 for buffet per head.

We've got nearly 100 people coming so catering will cost round about £450.00. I think this is realistically what we'll end up paying but hubby reckons we can arrange it for much cheaper.

p.s - we don't want to do our own catering.

What do you all think? has anyone had a similar do and how much did it cost you?

SOunds like a bargain to me-cost us £1200 for 50 people

What sort of buffet?

I think it's very reasonable, tbh. But it depends where you live - what will you get for £4.50 per head?

Can you put something out yourselves e.g. if you go to costco or similar and buy lots of gateaus for puds?

Is that just food or is it staff as well?

Depends what is in the buffet. When we were getting the girls christened/dhs 30th the quotes most prices for cold finger food buffet was around £4.50 a head. In the end we did the catering ourselves as it was a lot cheaper.

hi

wow, thanks for quick replies.

It's £50 for room
£4.50 for cold buffet (not sure what exactly it includes, am thinking sandwiches, pork pies, v basic really) and presumambly people to set it out but not serve it.
It's in a cricket club in a northern town

it sounds a reasonable price to me.

waswondering - what did you do about drink/booze though? we were thinking supplying our own beer is going to cost a fortune!

Depending on what time of day, you might not need to cater for everyone coming. There's always tons of food left over at these things.

Seems a reasonable price per head. You do have a lot of guests

you can ask them to bring a bottle instead of a christening present

That is very reasonable. You would pay that for a sarnie in a pub.

Sounds good to me

i wouldn't cater per head - at our wedding we only catered (in cost terms)for 50 but fed 100 on a finger buffet and still threw food away. if you feel that maybe "mean" then reduce the children out of the 100. it'd then leave money for booze if you need to buy that too and keep you under £450 mark.

I couldnt even get a buffet for that much unless your doing it yourself and by the time I added it up they difference wasnt worth the stress of making sandwhiches for 100 people

I recently paid £5.50 a head

Bargain, bite their hands off (probably all mayonnaisy too ). That's cheaper than a kids' party caterer round here.

If a cricket club, do they have their own bar? You could do a free drink on arrival (fizzy wine/buck's fizz) and then everyone pays for their own.

Or you could do an honesty bar - sign with suggested prices to cover/contribute to costs? E.g. if you buy 24 can of lagers from the supermarket you would probably pay around 60p per can. And you can buy wine for say £4/bottle. Ask for reasonable contributions e.g. £1 a drink or 75p a drink, free soft drinks (water, oj)

Is there (still?) a north/south divide on whether people pay for their own drinks at weddings/christenings etc? I'm sure there used to be, when I first moved from the Midlands to London many years ago with northerners thinking it was fine to pay for drinks at such events and southerners thinking the whole tab should be picked up by the hosts.

Blimey, that's very cheap. I'd go for it. You're not likely to do much cheaper even if you were to cater it yourselves.

Sounds reasonable to me. We didn't provide any alcohol for DD's baptism. It was in a local rugby club, and everyone paid for their own at the bar.

my wedding buffet is £13 a head...i kid you not. God i wish it was £4.50!

make sure you know exactly what you're getting for 4.50 - it might not be very much.

For DD's christening it cost us £5/head and guests bought their own drinks at the bar.

That sounds reasonable to me. We recently paid £8.50 a head so I'd go for it!

Oh, and I agree about not catering for the 100 invited. We had 60, catered for 50 and still had food left over (which I took home and fed DS with for 2 days!)