How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Can someone help me with this?

We have our final count, do we tell the hall 5 less, and then add the last week and have to pay again??

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

well, the way we did it for our e-party and will do it for the wedding is that there were certain people that we knew would either come too late, or wouldn't show up.. they were if-y's, so we didn't include them in the headcount.. The night of our e-party, we ended up with 10 more people.. and we weren't charged extra for it..

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

I didn't know that you could do that. Do they actually count the heads at these places???

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Hmmm... wouldn't that screw up the seating arrangements? If 10 extra people showed up at my wedding that I didn't add to the final headcount, I would think that those 10 people would end up walking around with no place to sit.

I'm a little confused by this low-balling method.

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

That's my point. Everyone has told me to lowball, and then add at the last minute, but I'm afraid that can create chaos.

The only reason why I'd lowball slightly is because we have 2 dips**** that might now show, and another questionable guest for understandable reasons....

Just not sure if I should bother doing this.

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Forgot about the seats...yeah...I'm confused too. How does this work?

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

When we gave the initial head count for the wedding, the catering manager took a few off when calculating the final price. Three days before the wedding we had to give the actual number. Of course if people did not show up after this point, we lost the money.

They dont have to do a head count - if you have 150 places set and after everyone sits there are people standing - they figure it out

We made a mistake with the table arrangements and got charged an extra plate.

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

I can't imagine having to think about paying that night....maybe I'll just give them the accurate count and eat the cost if these people don't show....

Very confusing!

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Sorry I wish I could help more, but quite honestly, I'm not sure if I would feel comfortable giving an inaccurate head count. I wouldn't want to deal with anymore payments after the day is over, ya know? That's JMO.

This is the first I've ever heard of this low-balling anyway!

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

You have to feed vendor's too, so you can excluded them from the tag at first, and then if your # falls, then you'll have extra $ from the no shows to pay for vendor meals.

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

We did the same thing as Alina for our eparty. I knew of 2 possibles not coming at all. So I gave the hall a floor plan without those people. And didn’t include them in the final count. When they showed up to the party, I asked the MD to add chairs to table so and so since I had already placed them at specific tables on my own floor plan.

I am going to do the same for the wedding. We didn’t have to pay additional for these 2 people because we had 6 no shows.

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

My future sister-in-law told me how to do this (she just got married two years ago)----

Pick up to five people that you love and are close to and who won't care if they have a place card (we're doing the Future sister-in-law and her husband and an aunt and uncle)...leave empty spaces at the tables you want them seated at (just tell the reception hall that those are the only people you want at the table...and there are spaces left). They will know who they are sitting with or which table #, so they will go and sit. The waiters will bring them everything that they need.

That way, you have 4 or 5 'extra' people, and if 4 or 5 others don't show up, you're not overcharged....

Hope this was a clear explanation, if not, fm me

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

That makes sense...now I get it...

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Is is great to save $$, after we are all spending so much, but isn't that a little risky? And who wants more to worry about that day?

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Here's what we did.

We needed to give the preliminary #'s to the caterer about a week before the wedding with the seating chart. We made up the chart leaving out about 7 or 8 people .... mostly guests of friends.... where it would not change the size of the table.

Example ... For a table of 10 ... we left off one 'Guest' so that they would still use a table for 10 guests.

so at 7 or 8 tables we had numbers like 9 or 11 guests. I told the caterer that we were waiting on some of our guests to tell us whether or not they were bringing someone. We had up until the night before to pay for the 'extras' & let the chef know the actual # of meals.

I actually had 5 guests cancel at the last minute. So this worked out very well. When Vinnie dropped off all of the boxes at the hall, he gave the new seating arrangement to them, with the canceled guests deleted & the
'+ guest's' added correctly. It was easy to do the place cards, b/c I just pulled out the canceled guests place card.

I know this doesn't help for 'no-show's' ... I don't think you can do much about that, but we didn't have any, so it worked out for us. But You may get last minute cancels, & you can save yourself the $$$ in that situation.

I know this is confusing ... if there are questions .. please fm me!

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

Re: How exactly does low-balling the final guest count work?

We made our headcount a few people less because we weren't sure if some people were coming until days before.We added them when we went to make the final payment.
We ended up having to pay for extra people in the end because we had several no-shows!