Food counts or no food counts - Help!

JBM2014 · December 2011

Some wedding venues I visited require a meal count for the plated dinner and some do not. Which one is the better option for me & my guests and any good/bad experiences you can share with your venue? Just not sure about sending out 200 invites and then counting up beef, chicken and fish the week of my wedding!!! I'm planning a February wedding in Connecticut....

banana468 · December 2011

"Technically" it's poor etiquette to ask your guests to choose a meal in advance. This was one of those rules that we broke (and I'm BIG on etiquette!).

Determining the meal count isn't a big deal. You just need to have clear response cards because you'd need to get the final count to your caterer about 10 days in advance of the wedding. We kept track of everything in a spreadsheet.

I'd make the choice by determining which venue is a better fit for you.

JBM2014 · December 2011

great advice - I hope I can be as organized as you

Thanks!

VintageChick125 · December 2011

I agree with Banana- I have a spread sheet and plan on just plugging in table numbers and meal choices when I get all of that back, so it shouldn't be too much of a pain if I theoretically keep up with it

GL!

Carebear62584 · December 2011

I'm going to say it's much easier to have the meal choices on the responses. That way your venue or caterer can be prepared and be sure to order enough of each entree (they will order extra of course regardless) so that they don't have to tell your guests there is no more available. That would totally stink! It would especially be hard to plan entrees for 200 people without an idea. Also, I think the guests would want to know ahead of time what the possibilities are....especially those with allergies.

Also, even though it's more work for you, I think you should indicate the meal choice on the back of the escort card or have a greeter reminding the guests of their meal selection. I say this because most people don't remember what they order when they send in their responses a month or 2 ahead of time. I would just hate for your guests to get upset that they cannot have their meal choice because there's not enough.

Hope that helps!

jennylove810 · December 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_connecticut_food-counts-food-counts?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:65Discussion:e259ca86-d939-4639-abb8-4b2068605e89Post:49ac44f6-b6a2-43fd-b614-96d1574714ad">Re: Food counts or no food counts - Help!</a>:
[QUOTE]<strong>I'm going to say it's much easier to have the meal choices on the responses. That way your venue or caterer can be prepared and be sure to order enough of each entree</strong> (they will order extra of course regardless) so that they don't have to tell your guests there is no more available. That would totally stink! It would especially be hard to plan entrees for 200 people without an idea. <strong>Also, I think the guests would want to know ahead of time what the possibilities are</strong>....especially those with allergies. <strong>Also, even though it's more work for you, I think you should indicate the meal choice on the back of the escort card or have a greeter reminding the guests of their meal selection.</strong> I say this because most people don't remember what they order when they send in their responses a month or 2 ahead of time. I would just hate for your guests to get upset that they cannot have their meal choice because there's not enough. Hope that helps!
Posted by Carebear62584[/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>Yes, yes, and yes.

</div>

calindi · December 2011

I've seen people have the escort cards with a certain color of jewel on it, or with a little design on it, to indicate which meal selection the person had. For instance, at a wedding that had a gold and black theme, people who had ordered chicken had a gold gem on theirs, people who ordered filet had a black gem, and people who had vegetarian had an ivory gem.

We're having stations, in large part because I hate having to pick my meal weeks ahead of time and I always want to change my mind, and my FI is a big eater and he's never full with a single plated meal, so being able to go back up and pick what you want is really important to us. Plus we have TONS of different food needs in our families - vegetarians, vegans, gluten-intolerant, lactose-intolerant, nut allergies. We want something for literally everyone - my FI has said that if our menu isn't one of the top 10 meals of the whole year for every single one of our guests, he'll be disappointed. I feel the same!

JBM2014 · December 2011

Thanks for the feedback - the allergies point is a great one. Need to know that stuff in advance.

And the places that have table side ordering DO charge more for it, so, since we aren't going super-formal, I think I'd rather spend that money on something else!!

Demea · December 2011

I was disappointed that my venue required a meal count. I totally felt like that was asking too much from my guest. Plus, my FMIL kept saying how it was bad etiquette. But overall, there have been some really good points raised on the board. I plan to organize a spreadsheet as well. I love the idea of divided the meal choices with some pretty significator like a gem. I am also going to request the staff to remind guests. My fear is that people would come and see someone else's plate and desire it to no avail. This way, it's not my fault because you get what you ordered and things should run smoother for the caterer because he will be more prepared.

toomanychoices17 · January 2012

Another idea for making the counting easier for you is to have people indicate their meal selection on your wedding website. Google sites has a template created that asks people to type in their name and selection and it will compile their responses. We haven't gotten to the point of ordering invitations, so I'm not really sure how it would work with response cards- I've been playing around with the idea of completely ignoring etiquette and using the website for rsvp's as well!

Food counts or no food counts - Help!

Re: Food counts or no food counts - Help!

Choose Another Board

Search Boards