Prom Catering
Serious partying works up an appetite.
Catering for a prom can seem daunting when you consider the number of people attending, but if you plan well in advance, it isn’t difficult at all.
Catering firms and how much to order
It’s incredibly rare to have a formal sit down meal at the beginning of the prom, so we’ll focus on buffet and finger food advice. A good catering firm will have lots of experience when it comes to making buffets for large numbers of people, but the best piece of advice we can give is to only order buffet food for half to three quarters of the number of people attending. This is the only way you can avoid having tonnes of leftovers at the end of the evening.
Drinks
Proms are invariably alcohol-free, so you need to provide a range of soft drinks from water, apple and orange juice through to fizzy drinks. You could investigate whether it’s possible to bulk buy some of the high quality soft drinks that are sold in pubs to provide the best variety.
Mobile bars are always an option – they may well have recipes for alcohol-free cocktails so it’s worth getting in touch with them for a quote.
The mess!
Nothing generates mess like feeding dozens of people using paper plates. Don’t underestimate the number of bins that you’ll need, and if you’re able to, provide well-labelled recycling bins for drinks bottles and cans so you don’t need to sort through afterwards.
Don’t forget to double check whether responsibility for cleaning up afterwards is being handled by the caterers, the school / venue or you! Ask early on so that you can make appropriate plans.
