Buffet Table Greed Stopped!

There's always the same pattern at the table buffet, out of control kids and very greedy people go first. Well mannered and polite people allow others to go in front and then there are just scraps left!

The other scenario is being held up in an enormous line awaiting those at the food table to decide whether they want Italian or Ranch dressing on their salad, or the buffet plate builders seeing how much more they can pile up in their plates before spilling it. Then they don't eat it all!

Imagine if you could have one of those automated cuing systems, "window No.3 please", like they have in big post offices and banks.

Is there a different method of getting people to their food at a much faster rate?

Actually there are several fun options that will help feed your wedding guests quickly and with a minimum of moans and groans of hunger.

If the number system works in banks, why can't it work at wedding reception buffets? Imagine if each table is assigned a number and the best man, MC or DJ calls out random numbers at various intervals. He can just pick them out of a hat like a lottery or bingo game.

The people at that particular numbered table then go the buffet and collect their food.

If it is a big wedding buffet then why not have 4 or 6 smaller buffets, so it would be "Table number 3 to buffet number 2 please".

You could number chairs instead of table and say "chairs 1 to 10 to buffet 4 please, this way the MC controls the number of people at the buffet, so as people move away with their food he replenishes the numbers.

If the numbering system sounds too formal there are other options. Each table could be nominated a colour and the MC simply calls out the colour.

Perhaps you could coordinate the tablecloths with the colours nominated for the table.

So you might have white, pink, lavender, beige, and primrose tablecloths, and your guests sitting at that particular table simply move to the buffet table when their colour of their tablecloth is called out.

Another idea would be to divide the tables into colors, say pink, blue, primrose, white table cloths and four buffet tables with those colors. It can't be easier, pink goes to pink etc!

Another option for moving people quickly and easily to the wedding buffet table involves having some fun with your guests.

You provide each table with a bike horn (they're cheap), or a bell, or anything that makes a noise.

The MC asks a question perhaps about the bride and groom. The first tables buzz in with their answer goes first to the buffet. You repeat the process until everyone is finally on their way to getting some food.

How about writing a number on each person’s place card?. If you have 100 guests, for example, you might choose to have 10 people at the buffet table at a time. So each person would be assigned a number 1 through 10. That’s ten lots of each number.

The MC will call a random number from 1 to 10, and those ten people will head for the wedding buffet table.

This staggered way feeding all your wedding guests is very quick; yes it can be fun or indeed a nuisance, depending on your guests. It does however solve the problem of half the room being finished with their meal and then waiting for others to finish theirs before the dancing etc start, but it can also mean that one or two guests might be long finished and going back for seconds, whilst others even eaten yet. Having said that, it happens anyway at all buffets.

The two ways of doing this is two have a server, that way they can't fill their plates with cake only and the portions are controlled.

A kids only buffet allows the adults to have their selection without the smaller ones weaving and dodging between their legs!