Wedding food HELP!

[FunkyChunk]

We are getting married in September.

We are having roughly 85 guests in the daytime with drinks reception and 2 course dinner.

In the evening, I'm estimating we will have an extra 65 guests bringing the total to around 150.

My question is.... how on earth do I decide on how much food to cater for in the evening?! Many places say to cater for 80% of the guests, so that's 120 people.

We have chosen 3 types of canapés - mini burgers, fish and chip cones and glazed sausages, along with pizzas. Would 5 "bites" be enough? So that would be one of each canapé and 2 slices of pizza per person (or rather, 120 people).

We are also having a cake buffet (doing ourselves) with lots of picky mini doughnuts, cupcakes, brownies etc.

The numbers are frying my brain... how many did you/will you cater for and how much per person? I don't want to be stingy on the food :)

That sounds great. Wish I was coming. Congratulations.

Are the canapés the evening buffet? What I would say is people will often eat way more 'little foods' than you would think. Especially bearing in mind that people would have had a few drinks by then and will be picky even if they're not hungry

Thanks both. The canapes will be part of the evening buffet, yes. I am worried we won't have enough but no idea how to gauge it!!!

Could you maybe ask the venue to put out some bowls of crisps/breadsticks etc.? Means those who don't feel 5 bites is enough have filling stuff if they want it with costing the earth.

I think you should have some more vegetarian options.

5 mini canapés would be nowhere near enough for the gluttons that came to my wedding. The people
I know always pile their plates high at a buffet. I went to a christening with a totally different group of
People and that has about 5 canapés per head and people kept asking when the food was neing served as they assumed the canapés were just a precursor to the buffet. The last thing you want is For people to remember that they were starving at your wedding.

Veggie options noted, I did make sure we had veggie pizzas but will add some other canapes! I think I'd rather over cater, maybe 6 canapes p/p, plus the pizzas, plus cake buffet?

The price shoots up and we were hoping to put some behind the bar, may have to sacrifice that for more grub!

I think people expect plenty of food much more than free drinks. I would sacrifice the money behind the bar for extra food.

Canapés are normally an expensive way of doing things. Could you rather scrap the canapés and have more of the fish and chip cones / pizza which is probably more filling and cheaper?

Unfortunately that is all the venue offer! And we aren't allowed our own catering.

The fish and chip cones come under "canapés", I'm not actually sure how substantial they are...

I would err towards having too much food rather than too little. What time are you serving the main meal? The 85 daytime guests might still be full, but the 65 evening guests might not have eaten, thinking they'll be fed (a bit) at your event.

Totally sympathise with your efforts to have more cash behind the bar, but it's going to be easier for guests to buy drink if they want more, and not so easy for them to get hold of food, if they're still hungry.

Also, not enough food + plentiful drink = Interesting Scenes. bitter experience

I agree, I would rather provide too much rather than too little food, and let guests pay for their own drinks. When I've been a day guest, I'm usually ravenous by the time the evening buffet gets served. I would worry that some guests would pile their plates, not leaving enough for people at the back of the queue. And in my circles, I'm sure everyone would want fed, not just 80%. Maybe we are a greedy bunch though!

we added a wedding cake made of cheese and a load of crackers, told the venue it was our 2nd wedding cake so it was allowed, it went down a storm ...have a look on M&S for cheese wedding cake

Loving curlys idea of the extra cheese cake with crackers.