How To Set Up A Buffet Table For A Wedding

5 Tips for Setting Up a Great Buffet

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(Image credit: Organized religion Durand)

If you're throwing a big political party or an upshot, like the wedding ceremony reception I've been sharing with yous this week (see all the posts here), chances are adept that you'll be setting up a buffet.

Ah the buffet — and so user-friendly and notwithstanding prone to common shortcomings. A few uncomplicated tips, though, will help y'all avoid pitfalls and take your buffet from adept to great. Hither are my essential tips for a quality buffet line.

(Image credit: Faith Durand)

Now, I should preface this by maxim that there are lots of tips and adept practices for setting up a cafe, and you may very well have other notes to share. Please do! This list, though, addresses more than of the common problems I see with buffets and their logistics.

1. Consider the movements of herds and corral accordingly.

When food is involved, people move in packs. They become more like a shoal of fish than human beings. They drift close in waves, then puddle in eddies, standing and munching without watching how shut they are to the table or how they may be blocking the menses of other grazers.

Then consider the movements of herds, packs, and other big dumb groups of living beings when you set upward the buffet line. Requite it a starting bespeak, an ending signal, and make sure there is a lot of extra space at both start and end for people to chew the cud. Brand a good flow easy and obvious. Consider creating alternating destinations in the room for people to drift towards and so others can reach the nutrient.

I play a trick on I often employ is to put the drinks at the far end of a large room, opposite or at to the lowest degree some steps away from the food table. This helps people spread more evenly throughout a large space. Speaking of which…

(Paradigm credit: Faith Durand)

ii. Put drinks on a separate table from the nutrient.

Getting a drink, peculiarly if there is coffee, with its attendant pourers and packets of sugar, is a dissimilar catamenia. It's a separate station, and you need to brand information technology like shooting fish in a barrel for people to swing past and refill their glass, without pressing through the buffet line. You likewise want it well-nigh the kitchen, as jugs of water and pots of coffee are heavier (commonly) than nutrient trays, and more prone to spillage.

→ Hospitality Tip: Keep the drinks tabular array clean. The drinks tabular array volition accumulate drips, spills, and piles of disposables as people leave their empty saccharide packets next to the coffee, or dab at drips with paper napkins. Brand regular swings by the drinks tabular array to mop upwards and keep it looking refreshed.

(Image credit: Faith Durand)

3. Plates at the front, cutlery at the end.

Back at the food tabular array — here'southward the cardinal rule. Practice not make people pick up their forks, knives, spoons, sporks, or cups at the commencement of the line. All that should be at the beginning of a nutrient line are plates, and maybe napkins. All cutlery and anything else that has to be juggled goes at the end (or, fifty-fifty better, on the tables where people will sit and eat). No exceptions.

→ Obvious (Nevertheless Mysteriously Overlooked) Tip: For goodness sakes don't forget the trash cans! I've been to too many parties that had nary a trash tin can in sight, and yet all the food was served on disposable plates. Make sure to have plentiful outlets for discarded food and plates and napkins. If you don't give your guests a identify to put trash, they'll find a place, and it's probably not where y'all desire information technology to exist.

(Epitome credit: Faith Durand)

4. Put out multiple stacks of everything.

Once more, moving-picture show non one person going through the line, but a herd. It'south best to create several points of admission for everything. Don't put out ane stack of napkins; put out three, slightly staggered, so someone can snake in a hand and grab one when their kid spills punch, and yet not hold upwards the line. For small plate or appetizer setups, I similar to put stacks of plates at both the get-go and finish of the table, so people can wander upwards from any direction.

Putting out plenty of cups and plates correct abroad too means less piece of work for you later in the party.

(Prototype credit: Religion Durand)

→ Tiny Tip: Make the napkins easy to grab. Maybe I am just ultra detail-oriented only I like to stack paper napkins with the seam facing outwards, to make them easier to pick upward quickly.

(Image credit: Faith Durand)

5. Arrange the nutrient table strategically.

Put nigh plentiful or cheapest types of food at the beginning; push button the scarcest or most expensive to the end. I usually continue an eye on the nutrient and within the first 60 minutes switch it up. At the wedding, for instance, I noticed that people were skipping over the veggie and hummus cups (come on, eat your veggies, people!). I had plenty of these, then I swapped them with the meatballs and put them at the very front of the line, which helped equalize things a bit.

Those are some of the major things I retrieve near when setting up a buffet for a decent amount of people. What near you? What would you add?