Feeding Guests at Your Party - Menu and Recipe Thoughts

You may be having a little trouble deciding just how to spread the food around at your next themed party. There are three basic options for feeding guests at a party. You can have a sit down dinner party, a buffet table party or a cocktail party.

The sit down dinner party is only feasible for parties with around a maximum of 12 to 15 guests. Unless you are planning on throwing around a lot of money, in which case you can hire waiters, hostesses, and rent a reception hall. One sees this type of large dinner party at many wedding receptions. For those who are looking to have a sit down party at home however I recommend keeping it to 12 dinner guests otherwise you may end up running around trying to keep your party together and just end up with the whole affair falling apart.

The guest list may be slightly longer than that so you might want to move on to the next method of feeding guests at your themed party. This would be the buffet table party. You can feasibly feed up to 30 guests with a buffet table or two. Include easy to put together items, like salads, and sandwiches. You could even have a crock pot with a good soup going for guests to self-serve. Set up tables around the party area for guests to make use of and if its warm out you can set up tables in the backyard and help ease some congestion in your home.

However if your party guest list contains more than 30 people I suggest moving on to the Cocktail party. Put together several small tables with pick up food throughout the party area or if you can hire a couple of servers to carry trays of food around. Local neighborhood kids may be up for the job in exchange for a little spending money. Stick to appetizers. It’s cheaper and the logistics of feeding a lot of people something more involved like Chicken Parmigiano are tricky and you’re likely to end up with tomato sauce stains on the carpet.

Remember to stick to these three methods of feeding guests at your themed party and you should save yourself a lot of effort and worry.

Mrs. Party... Gail Leino is the internet's leading authority on selecting the best possible party supplies, using proper etiquette and manners while also teaching organizational skills and fun facts. Free Party Games to help complete your event.