How to decide how much of each dish on a buffet?

[Deleted User] · May 2016

Hello!

I am trying to (very quickly) decide what the break down of our food should be at our wedding. We are having a chicken, fish, and vegetarian option. We have 100 guests and are budgeting to have a little more food -- I've heard a lot of horror stories about people not getting food (or the vegetarians not getting a dish because non-vegetarians took the veg dish) that I want to get this right. Currently, our break down is 50 chicken, 40 salmon, 25 vegetarian red curry skewers, plus salad and cous-cous "salad".

I am wondering if the salmon number is too high and we should instead do 60 chicken/30 salmon/25 vegetarian. I am not a huge fish fan, but I can't really figure out what will be a more popular entree. The chicken is stuffed with fontina cheese, spinach and has a tomato jus on top.

Any advice is appreciated! We may also add another vegetable/starch on the side that we bring ourselves. We are on a pretty tight budget and the catering pp can escalate pretty quickly.

Thanks
Sydney

lnixon8 · May 2016

Your caterer should tell you that you should have enough of each option for everyone to try everything. They will portion things so you're not getting a huge entree for each portion. If I went to your wedding I would probably take the chicken as well as one or two skewers thinking they were sides.

SwissMs · May 2016

I agree with the PP - on a buffet, people are going to try more than one thing - possibly one of each of the entrees. But a good caterer should be able to help you figure out exactly what you need.

[Deleted User] · May 2016

Awesome, this is helpful. Thanks!

Casadena · May 2016

PP's have it covered.

At a buffet, it's typical that you should have enough for every person to have at least one serving of everything.

[Deleted User] · May 2016

Thank you

As I am sure you all know, it's really hard to over think this sort of thing! The original numbers were a little funky, especially light on the vegetarian side (we have a lot of veggie friends/veggie kids coming), so I guess that sparked my worry about the rest of the food. I feel confident it'll end up fine.

OurWildKingdom · May 2016

Knottie1451743787 said:

Thank you
As I am sure you all know, it's really hard to over think this sort of thing! The original numbers were a little funky, especially light on the vegetarian side (we have a lot of veggie friends/veggie kids coming), so I guess that sparked my worry about the rest of the food. I feel confident it'll end up fine.

I know the feeling. I was trying to figure out the numbers myself for our reception and freaking out. Our caterer reassured me that since we're offering a huge variety, we don't have to order as much of any one thing as we thought.

SP29 · May 2016

I agree your caterer should be able to tell you how much of each you will need (or not even tell you, just prepare it based on your guest count). But in general, you should have enough food that each guest has the freedom to pick what they want- the last guests in line shouldn't be stuck with fish because the 50 people before them took chicken.

Pinksatin91016 · May 2016

Thanks you guys this helps me too. I have like less than 5 guests that I know of that are either vegan or have crown's disease so we are doing a vegan veggie pasta dish for one option, but it's true that when I am at a buffet, I pretty much take a little of everything unless I'm allergic to it. So I'll just trust my caterer to provide enough for everyone to have everything, but I was thinking I hope there's enough of the "special" dish for the people with "special" diets.

How to decide how much of each dish on a buffet?

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