A few more meal and drink related questions

So the lovely caterer has said she will work off a really tight budget for our afternoon tea wich includes canapes after the ceremony, but for the evening she has said not to cater for a lower percentage but for every person. So it is still going to cost us far more than we had originally budgeted for.

We are having 80 for afternoon tea, and then the only evening option we can afford is hot pork and hot beefs baps with a few mozarella panninis as back up in case anyone decides they're suddenly veggie. We are looking at 130 in total for evening (inc day guests). Because afternoon tea is quite light, the caterer has said we will need baps for every single person as day guests will be hungry again, and evening guuests will probably have skipped an evening meal.

Generally would you guys agree with this? Every other caterer and married person I have spoken to says there was lots of wastage in the evening - but that is after most of the guests had a larger 3 course dinner. Shall we lower the number we cater for slightly to save some pennies?

My second wondering is about the drinks to go with the meal. We really wanted to put out jugs such as fruity lagers, pimms etc, but our venue has said that is £20 per jug which will only serve 5 so we will need at least 2 jugs per table - again the costs are mounting up beyond the budget, as we originally based our costs on having wine (£13 per bottle). I am still not sure if wine goes right with afternoon tea. We also wanted to provide welcome drinks with the canapes and fizz for the toast drinks. But now we can't afford all 3 drinks.

If you were a guest would you prefer to have welcome drinks such as a beer/bellini with the canapes, then make your prosecco toast fizz last through the afternoon tea with nothing else on offer, and just drink at the bar later? Or would you prefer to have no drinks with the canapes, and have fizz for toasts and then be given a glass of punch or wine to go with afternoon tea?

Ok food first. I'd agree with your caterer. Most people say to cater for around 75% of your evening guests, but, as you say, this is when the day guests have already had a three course meal. If I'm a day guest, I'm rarely hungry for the evening food, unless it comes out quite late. If I'm an evening guest, I don't eat before I go, so I always eat the food. If I'd only had afternoon tea, I'd be hungry for something in the evening. You'll see a few people differ from me in that, as evening guests, they'd eat before arriving, so you could get away with cutting it down a bit, but I wouldn't go as far as 75%.

With drinks, after a wedding, I'm normally gasping for a drink, especially if I've driven a long way. Therefore, I'd say go for a welcome drink with the canapes. Will the bar be open during afternoon tea? If I'm honest, one glass of fizz would probably last me about 5 minutes, but I wouldn't mind buying myself another drink.

Knees:

Ok food first. I'd agree with your caterer. Most people say to cater for around 75% of your evening guests, but, as you say, this is when the day guests have already had a three course meal. If I'm a day guest, I'm rarely hungry for the evening food, unless it comes out quite late. If I'm an evening guest, I don't eat before I go, so I always eat the food. If I'd only had afternoon tea, I'd be hungry for something in the evening. You'll see a few people differ from me in that, as evening guests, they'd eat before arriving, so you could get away with cutting it down a bit, but I wouldn't go as far as 75%.

With drinks, after a wedding, I'm normally gasping for a drink, especially if I've driven a long way. Therefore, I'd say go for a welcome drink with the canapes. Will the bar be open during afternoon tea? If I'm honest, one glass of fizz would probably last me about 5 minutes, but I wouldn't mind buying myself another drink.

Completely agree with Knees.

Also, personally for that price difference. I'd put wine on the tables. As nice as it would be to have jugs of fruity beers, you'd be saving £14 per table.

Because you're having something very discrete (baps/rolls/paninis) I'd say cater for everyone.  With the traditional buffet, a lot of people will pick, and so have less than their catered amount (say one chicken wing/small slice of quiche).  With a bap, you either have a whole bap (and leave what you don't want) or go without.  I think that the 75% is more to cater for those who eat less than a portion, than suggesting that 25% of people will eat nothing!

Also do you have your final RSVPs in yet.  We lost about 30% of our invited day guests (admittedly some of them were highly unlikely) at the RSVP stage, which substantially reduced our catering budget.

Food wise I agree with your caterer. We are doing something similar to you, afternoon tea, followed by evening BBQ. We are doing full catering for each, as otherwise I think people will be hungry. Afternoon tea is no bigger than a normal lunch buffet when you think about it, and you wouldn't skip dinner and then drink a skinful of alcohol would you after only having some sandwiches and cake for your lunch?

I think, unfortunately you are going to have to do a full catering for the evening do, otherwise there is potential for annoyed and very drunk guests.

Drinks wise, for our afternoon tea we are providing tea, coffee and fresh orange only. If anyone wants alcohol with that they have to buy it. Could you do that instead? Its included in the £21 per head for ours and that way we get to have real champagne for our toasts.

Our catering goes like this:

Arrival drinks: Pimms or non-alcoholic fruit punch and posh lancashire crisps

Afternoon tea- savoury tartlets, sandwiches, cakes, scones, tea, coffee, fresh orange

Toast drinks- champagne or non-alcoholic elder flower cocktail

Evening do- BBQ for all 80 guests- steak, sausages, chicken, salad potatoes, coleslaw, greek salad, range of breads, there will also be enough salmon for 30 people and veggie options are stuffed peppers and vegetable kebabs. Wedding cake for afterwards.

We doing something similar to DeliciousWitchChild. Our afternoon tea menu is quite full. It's costing us the same as the 3 course meal would. We're having sandwiches, mini yorkshire puddings and roast beef, mini pies, cheese scones and fruit scones, fresh strawberries and chocolate/strawberry/lemon cupcakes. With that we're having tea, coffee and wine. Bit of an odd mixture but we're already having pimms on arrival so couldn't really think of an alternative.

We aren't having canapes as they are so expensive at our venue. We have put in the invitation that people should have a good brunch though.

In the evening we are having a bbq style buffet. We'll be catering for 80% as I think our afternoon is actually quite filling. We're having our wedding cake with the evening buffet and a sweet buffet in the evening too.

I'd agree with the others that as the evening food isn't massive I think you should cater for everyone. I think wine will be fine with the meal given the huge difference in price.

food wise - i think you need to cater for everyone! especially as the nature of your evening food is kind of one per person...what if someone takes more than one etc and you only catered for 80% in the first place? so i agree you need 100% catering on that one...

with the drink, how much wine were you going to have on each table? just two bottles? or more? if you have a table of 10 then 2 jugs of pimms will give everyone a decent sized glass..if you have 2 bottles of wine you aren't likely to get more than half a glass per person (maybe a tad more) so the cost actually isn't that bad .... in saying that if it's not in budget then i would go for a welcome drink with canapes then a toast drink...as long as the bar is open people can pay themselves for things!

x

For day guests yes I would agree to cater for all if they've had a lighter afternoon tea. If it were a full 3 course meal than I would cater for less.

For evening only guests, personally I always grab something to eat beforehand just in case - also depends a bit on what time that part starts, if it's 6/7 then maybe some people won't get chance to eat but if it's later then I think its fair to assume people may have eaten already.

I do agree with your caterer.  But also if guests are drinking there is all likelihood no matter how largely they eat they will be wanting munchies again in the evening.  Weddings are excuses for everyone to over indulge so they tend to do that and with the addition of drink that increases that.

As others have said, definitely cater for everyone in the evening. We catered for 75% but we did have a tradiitional buffet & pudding on offer - and very little left.

Drinks wise, whilst it does bump up costs, it's good to offer drinks, we went to a wedding last weekend and there were no drinks offered at all - all the guests went disappearing off to the bar after the ceremony, whilst the bride & groom were wanting pics taken ! Personally, i'm not into either pimms or fruity lager so would not drink either if they were at the table. I think the minimum should be the drinks with the canapes & fizz for the toast. I'd be happy to sit down to afternoon tea with jugs of ices water & jugs of squash or homemade lemonade (or even cloudy homemade lemonade). Is that something the venue could arrange? Water would be free (as long as it's jugs of iced tap water) & i can't imagine squash or lemonade costing much.

mrsrh2b:

As others have said, definitely cater for everyone in the evening. We catered for 75% but we did have a tradiitional buffet & pudding on offer - and very little left.

 

Drinks wise, whilst it does bump up costs, it's good to offer drinks, we went to a wedding last weekend and there were no drinks offered at all - all the guests went disappearing off to the bar after the ceremony, whilst the bride & groom were wanting pics taken ! Personally, i'm not into either pimms or fruity lager so would not drink either if they were at the table. I think the minimum should be the drinks with the canapes & fizz for the toast. I'd be happy to sit down to afternoon tea with jugs of ices water & jugs of squash or homemade lemonade (or even cloudy homemade lemonade). Is that something the venue could arrange? Water would be free (as long as it's jugs of iced tap water) & i can't imagine squash or lemonade costing much.

Thanks for your opinions all! Mrs h2b thanks for putting that point across, I wouldn't leave them with nothing at all - just concerned about how much alcohol people would generally expect and when guests would be most likely to want a drink.

The cloudy lemonade/squash would definitely be a cheaper option rather than anything alcholic. We could definitely afford this, and just hope that people won't feel as if we are being stingy. Also I think a fruit punch or lemonade goes nicely with our style meal.

The bar will be open throughout the day so those that are desperate for booze can always get their own alcoholic drink to go with the meal. At that point if people were to disappear to the bar it would be fine as I will no doubt be trying to sneak a few sarnies as well as chat to everyone and be moving about, therefore not requiring any formal shots.

So it would go:

Welcome drinks with canapes after ceremony

Fizz for toasts

Afternoon tea with jugs of non-alcoholic beverages

That doesn't look too neglectful or cheap does it? I never thought I would be the kind of person to worry about something as basic as giving a drink or not!

Sounds fine to me PB, as long as you are keeping them hydrated I wouldn't worry too much about whether it's alchoholic or not, they have that option at the bar!

Nutella:

Sounds fine to me PB, as long as you are keeping them hydrated I wouldn't worry too much about whether it's alchoholic or not, they have that option at the bar!

Phew thanks, just don't want to look like we're being really mean to our guests!

What you said in your last post sounds fine, it's not stingy at all! Even as a drinker I prefer to have a soft drink in the day with just one or two alcoholic drinks and save myself for the evening!

Sounds fine to me, its what we're doing too. I wish i'd thought of traditional lemonade to go with our meal now. Oh well.