Friend is having a fancy buffet dinner, no one helping serve or pick up?

That is about as far from fancy as you can get; this wouldn't work for 20 people, never mind 290. And she needs three bartenders, at least.

This is a clusterfuck waiting to happen.

It's not poor etiquette - it's poor logistics. That bartender will be very tired. Too many people in the kitchen. What happens when food needs to be restocked?

Rather than take the plates into the kitchen, the dishes should either be disposable or should be placed in large containers and someone else take them in the kitchen.

Will ALL of the food be placed on the tables and the guests serve themselves? All the food won't be able to fit in the burners at one time.

I thought rule of thumb was 75 people per bar tender? Also... Ew. Maybe see if she could hire some people to bus tables? Like some high school students? Or if you have a college nearby many colleges have a "hospitality club" and you could hire some of them?

She might be able to get the caterer to stay and man the buffet/clear the tables.

You're not crazy, she is.

This sounds like a nightmare. Ok so having an unmanned buffet with food like prime rib is going to be a hot mess. Everyone is going to take huge portions and they are going to run out of food. I dont like the idea of unmanned buffets in general. It is a free for all and people are going to take too much food. I have been to 2 weddings this year where their buffet ran out of food and 20-30 people didn't get food.

Only having 1 bartender is a horrible idea. I have the same guests as her and we are having 3-4. I was at my cousins wedding and she had 130 people and 2 bartenders weren't enough, there was a huge wait at the bar, but it was a cash bar, so that didn't really help.....Also my family is a bunch of alcoholics.

And having guests bus their own tables, no no no no. My mom did this for her bff's kids wedding. The caterer left and the plates were just sitting around so my mom took it upon herself to take care of the mess. At my cousin's wedding she hired teenagers to help bus the tables, that worked out ok and could be an option for your friend. Anything better than this free for all mess.

I would firmly encourage your friend to rethink this.

She needs to hire servers.

LOL.....she's going to have 290 guests serving themselves and taking care of their own dishes and everyone is more concerned about the bartender!! LOL!! Of course maybe we should be, guests will want to drink themselves silly from the clusterfuck they will be witnessing.

Who's carving the prime rib?

We ran an event like this for a non-profit leadership organization I volunteer with a few weeks ago, with exactly the set up you are describing. It was BYOB (Liquor license issue work around) so no bartender, but there was one chef there to run herd on people/ restock the buffet and it was for about 75 people.

1. It was, in fact, a bit of a mess.

2. These were people who were, to some degree, expecting to help. They put their own chairs up at the end of the night, paid for their own food, ect. Bringing dishes back to the kitchen, scraping food, and stacking them to go through the wash was NBD. And people were in every day clothes, not fancy dress.

3. It's a non-profit. Budget constraints come with the territory.

A wedding, with people in fancy outfits, expecting to be hosted with 300 people? People will just leave. With their plates on the table. And it will be a mess of epic proportions.

You'll have to report back after the wedding and let us know how it turned out.

I would definitely leave the word "fancy" out of your description. It sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.

Our venue provided 1 bartender per 50 guests. We hosted 225, so we just paid for 2 extra bartenders. Guests will start serving themselves, rather than wait in line.

I've seen the idea work out at church dinners, where everyone pitches in to help, but there's usually a committee of volunteers, which is possible with a charity, but not cool for wedding guests.

The bar is the least of her issues. She needs at least six buffets, with servers facilitating the serving or it will take totally forever.

It's not doable at all.