Buffet for main meal anyone??

Hi girls, The numbers keep rising on our guest list. We started off at a small wedding of 40 but now its getting to 100! My H2B keeps wanting to add this one and that one and Im panicking about costs. There's a good chance I'll be made redundant in January and I'm thinking about having a buffet for the main meal. Anyone having/had a buffet for the main meal for numbers approx 100 people? If so how did it go and what did you have!!

I had a buffet for 230! It worked out well - get the hotel to call the tables up one at a time (the hotel ended up not doing this but it wasn't the chaos that I had thought it would be). We also served the cake as dessert with cream. It was just something different as we wanted a fairly informal kind of day. If you want to know else anything let me know....

I'd say go for it. My brother lives in England and buffet meals at weddings are much more popular there, in fact most weddings he has been at have been buffet style meals. The only thing I would say is make sure to have PLENTY of food - he was at one in a really posh castle & there were staff making sure you only took a certain amount, e.g. 2 potatoes/2 slices of meat or something per person (can't remember exactly what he said) and he is a big lad and wasn't happy!

I'd say go for it.. If you like the idea of a buffet style why not. As long as you get in good caterers or the hotel are used to doing this style you should be fine. The main things are that the food is hot and you have plenty of it. As another poster said, nothing worse than your guests not being able to eat what they need/want (bit like Oliver Twist - Please sir can I have some more )If it were me I would also want it run to military precision so that the queue never got manic and no one ends up getting the cold dregs at the end... Sorry if I sound more against the idea than for it. As long as you are aware of pitfalls and have as many angles covered there's no reason it shouldn't work out

I was at a wedding of about 80 where there was a buffet. The tables went up in an orderly fashion when called. Unfortunately I was at the last table and there wasn't really much left for us. I was a bit annoyed to be honest but I didn't take it out on anyone or voice my opinion....afterall it wasn't my day. I think it is a great idea as long as you make sure there is enough food for everyone and the staff constantly replenish the buffet until everyone has finished.

We got married two weeks ago and the plan had been to have a buffet but the week before the hotel called and said that they would prefer to do a sit down meal and they would compenaste by giving us a free starter. I was freaked out, I really wanted the buffet so that it would be an informal day. Anyway, decided that I'd go with the sit down because if I didn't and it all went wrong then the hotel would say that they had warned us. In the end it all worked out for the best because we had fillet beef and they cooked it exactly as each guest ordered, it was delicious and lots of people commented on how well cooked the meat was, had we gone for a buffet it would have meant that everyone just got their meat medium.

If a hotel can't do a good buffet, then, sorry they are not a good hotel. Don't be afraid to go for a buffet style meal if that's what you want. Maybe you should just ask the hotel to make sure that dishes are re-stocked so that there is plenty for everyone, even if it costs a little extra. I think that a buffet in summer is lovely, who wants to sit down to a gut busting 5 course meal with hot soup on a roasting hot day like we had to this June bank holiday, we were all sweating into our soup and 250 people crammed into one stuffy room... I'd have much preferred a buffet.

The best wedding meal I have ever had was a cold buffet. There were 350 guests at the wedding and it was fine, orderly and not at all chaotic. Tables weren't called up or anything, people just drifted up as they pleased after the starter had been served to the table. It's great for fussy eaters, vegetarians etc. Go for it

Thanks girls I feel a bit more confident about it now. Any ideas what food to provide?

Just starting out on all of this - not public yet, due to work stuff. I'm hoping that we will do what a friend did years ago, a monster finger food buffet for loads of people, cake, speeches and then head off for a posh meal for the immediate family. Means I can invite everyone, no one gets the bum table, people don't have to pay for hotels etc..... It might be too late if you have sent out invites, but we reckon that we could have the wedding at 1.30, drinks from 3.30, food from 5, head to sit down meal at 7. It worked so well for my friend's wedding, but they had loads of food and booze. Anyone talked to hotels about that sort of thing?