Wedding Buffet

I think you give them the number if guests and they take care of the rest. When I talked to my caterer yesterday he said he's making enough for the official number of guests and there will be enough for seconds because everybody won't eat everything. But talk to your caterer.

I did it because of the variety and then people can choose what they can eat or what they like the best. And a good caterer will have plenty so people CAN have seconds if they want.

I think it's more about the style of service you want? Buffets do typically allow for a lot more food variety and for guests to serve themselves exactly what they actually want to eat

Caterers plan for people to eat 1.5-2x more at a buffet than any other type of meal. The more variety you have, the less likely you are to run out of the "hot ticket" items such as your meats and other proteins. It's good to have 2-3 mains and another 2-4 sides to avoid people bombarding the same item.

ETA I say this as a former catering manager.

Experienced/professional caterers know about how much people eat and will usually account for seconds or people preferring one item over another. Like pp said, they usually plan for 1.5 times the amount of people to ensure there's enough. As long as you provide an accurate count, let them worry about the rest!

My caterer explained that they make food for a certain percentage more, for example if you have 100 people and they do 25% more they would actually make food for 125 people. Not everyone will eat everything or if they do eat everything they will eat smaller portions of everything so it all works out in the end. I was only ever at one wedding where the buffet ran out of certain items (it was veggies and the family had prepared the food themselves...).