Buffet style - tips to make this easy and less stressful

rosacaro13

So we just booked our venue with our food for 300 guests. We decided to do buffet style vs seated because they wanted to charge an extra $600 to serve seated dinner. I really need tips on how this can be an easy flow for 300 ppl. Thy will have chips and salsa on table while they wait for their food. Should we start by tables? To avoid standing in line. Have 2 serving stations so we can have 2 lines, I'm sure I can request this to our catering person? Not sure what else would work? All help is appreciated! Thx!

kmrort

I have been to a large wedding with a buffett.  I think two or more serving stations is best.  Is eases the minds of your guests that they won't have to wait a long time.  By table is good too.  It really sounds like you have it done right, with food on the table for them to start with.  I love that!

rebeccaa12

I have 300 guests, too. I'm also doing a buffet style. Our caterers actually didn't charge much more to serve, but we opted buffet style for mainly two reasons:

1.) Keeps the food hotter on the warmers so people get their food from the warmer as opposed to having it served at out in the kitchen, waiting to distribute.

2.) The kids (we have kids at our wedding) will be able to have half portions served.

Typically your venue will have options for you. For us, we are having our DJ call tables. You can cetainly do a 'double sided' buffet and have 2 lines go at once.  We are having our salads served, so each guest will have something while the line is going. I think having chips and salsa while they wait for their food is a good fix.
 
I hope this helps. I guess I'm not quite sure of many other ways to make this a quicker process. Good luck!

Eboix518

We had around 300-320 guests and had a buffet. We did 2 stations and 2 carving stations we also had a salad bar. The buffets were set up on the opposite sides of the room so tables on the left and right had their own lines. I dont think they called tables since we did not have them numbered.

I had people tell me that the lines ran very quickly and they ran smoother than most weddings they had been too. We had a planner there with the venue that I assume helped with this. We also had a build you own pastat station where a cook made you chicken or a shrimp spaghetti/fettucinni and the line still ran quickly. I like the buffets better bc you are not sitting waiting for your food as well. We had pretty heavy apps too so I think that helped - people did not go hungry

robsco

I went to a wedding that had a buffet set on two sides.  That really helped a lot because essentially there were two lines going at the same time.  I think it did ease the bottleneck that could have been created.