400 Guest Wedding
 

16 pork loins, 450 hot dogs (they wanted leftovers because they were spending the weekend at the wedding venue), 60 lbs. of green beans, 84 lbs. of pasta salad, 30 lbs. of bacon for the pasta salad and green beans.


I think for now we might limit ourselves to catering 300 guests or less. We can bring in people to help serve, but it's just my wife and I doing all the cooking and prep.

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Awesome job cooking for that many. I wouldn't know where to start.

I bet if your phone rings tomorrow and someone asks you to cater a wedding for 600 your brain will go $$$$$$ and you will say yes LOL I know I would and then work out the details and logistics for the wedding day!

Nice cook Chef Kevin, thank you for sharing. I too had to limit the # at a certain point years ago. Good looking food for sure.

It kind of bothers me to know how right you are. lol

awesome! we just started doing weddings. First one is 200 in a couple weeks and i'm freaking a bit.

What are you serving and what's your backup plan?

What do you mean by back up plan??

When I'm catering an event where the meat takes 12-14 hours to cook, I always have a backup plan. Like if I smoke brisket for 200 and do something idiotic like put a brisket directly over the pit probe and cremate a bunch of briskets, I like to have something I can do quickly as a replacement. Generally I'll have a few full ribeyes in the fridge so I can take the smoker with me and grill steaks in a hurry.


I just try to keep something in the back of my mind for any "what-if" situations so I'm not as stressed out. I haven't had to use it yet but I feel better knowing I've got the situation covered if it arises.

Sounds like a good way to go bankrupt.

Not really, if I don't use them the ribeyes can either be frozen or I can cut them into sandwich slices and have a promotion with the food trailer one day.

I live in abject fear of being the cause of someone's event being ruined, so I make sure I have contingencies in place, that's all. :becky:

Looks good. Can't believe you ran 400 people thru a little corner buffet but if it worked, rock on!
May I inquire what you charged per head?

There were actually only about 300 there, they wanted leftovers for the rest of the weekend. I only smoked/heated the hot dogs because they wanted to have a wiener roast the next evening.


If I remember correctly, it was $10.50/person.

Man $10.50 a person seems really cheap. Doesn't seem like it would be worth all that time and effort for a couple hundred bucks.

It came out to a little over $4,000. I got the pork loins and hot dogs from Dot Foods inventory (I still drive part-time so I'm an employee and get that perk). 15 pork loins cost me $225 and the hot dogs were less than that. Side were green beans and pasta salad, which were also inexpensive sides. Counting containers, equipment and paying our minions, we put out less than $1,000 on the job. Timewise, it wasn't difficult, the pork loins only took a few hours, the hot dogs less and we were only there for four hours counting setup, serving and teardown.
We weren't out to get rich, we were trying to help them out somewhat because the caterer they had originally backed out due to sudden medical issues. The original caterer called me and asked if we could help out so we stepped in. :becky: