How Much Evening Food Do Your Wedding Guests Need?

A few hours busting your best moves on the dance floor and a sausage bap can be very tempting, even if after the wedding meal you claimed to be stuffed to the gunnels! But how much evening food do your wedding guests need? Additional guests for the evening will want to be fed, but guests who’ve dined heartily earlier on won’t necessarily need another meal.

It’s a case of getting the offering right, but also the timing. We advise on a timeline when you first get in touch and try to allow each section of the day to include a bit of breathing time. You don’t want to finish one meal only to be offered more food again that you don’t want, and then be raiding the fridge when you get home. But evening guests won’t want to wait ages before they see a bit of grub! If you’ve shelled out for a brilliant live band, they don’t want to have just started their first set only for there to be mass exodus from the dance floor to the evening food.

We can help you work out timings, quantities and also what food is going to be suitable for larger groups, without being labour-intensive or staff heavy as this will only bump up your costs. We can also suggest alternatives for those with dietaries that are in keeping with the main choice, so that it’s kept simple without the need for multiple offerings (which may also bump up costs).

Who will be there for the evening food?

Your day guests will already have had the wedding breakfast, and perhaps canapés beforehand. Guests joining you later will not have had that food with you, so keep the two groups separate when giving us your numbers.

If you have 80 day guests and 40 additional evening guests that means 120 people to consider when planning the food, but some may have left early so you don’t need to cater for them, and with self-serve options such as cheese boards,  you can usually get away with ordering for around 80% of the total guests. With other types of evening food that are individually portioned such as filled baps, it’s wise to cater for at least 90% of the total guests, as these can’t be shared.

Hot baps, festival pots or a cheese board?

We have several options on our Evening Food menu that work best when handed round by our staff, as opposed to being served from a table. It works particularly well in larger venues or marquee weddings on private land as we can track everyone down wherever they might be whether it’s by the bar, in another room of the venue, or outside in the garden. These offerings includes hot baps, hot dogs, and pastry grab bags as well as curry, chilli, paella and mac n’ cheese individual festival style pots.

For self serve grazing, a cheese board is still very popular, and with this choice you can save on staff charges by having us set it all up before we go, and then leave you to it.

Ask about hot food before choosing your menu

Hot evening food may require additional catering equipment to what is on offer at your venue, or what has been used to produce your main wedding meal. Our Southern fried chicken strips, fries and fish goujons are only available if fryers are permitted so do check with your venue before setting your heart on the fries. If you are planning a village hall wedding, the kitchen facilities are worth discussing with us early.

Dietary requirements are important as well

If you’ve got additional evening guests, don’t forget to ask them for their dietaries as well so we can ensure we have something suitable for them. If you’ve opted for a cheese board this will be no good for any dairy free or vegan guests, or if you’ve opted for the baps, we’ll need to know how many gluten free guests you have, so that everyone is covered.

Some items on our menu are already veggie, vegan, dairy or gluten free and sometimes your main evening food choice can be adapted.

Include dietary requirements within your total headcount and tell us how many guests need each option. If someone has a food allergy, tell us exactly what they need to avoid.

Talk to us about your day and evening

Everything to do with weddings comes down to good planning – and that’s where we come in. We know this is all new to you, so let us ask the right questions and guide you through the whole process so that both the day and the evening run smoothly with carefully chosen menus that work for your number of guests, and cater adequately for dietaries.

To find out more about our wedding catering  just drop us an email to info@greenfigcateringcompany.com or complete our enquiry form. We would love to hear what you have planned.

Wedding Evening Food

If you need to stop to re-fuel before hitting the dance floor again look no further!