Guest Count Planning

An exact guest count is rarely possible for a celebration of life, especially when it’s arranged on short notice. A workable estimate is usually enough — and most caterers, including us, are used to planning around a range rather than a fixed figure.

A reasonable starting point is to think in terms of close family and friends who will definitely attend, plus a wider estimate for community, colleagues, or extended acquaintances who may come. If the deceased was well known locally, or if the service is open to the public, that second group can be harder to predict, and it’s worth erring slightly higher rather than lower.

If you genuinely don’t know, say so — tell your caterer it’s a rough guess and by how much it might move. That’s more useful than a confident-sounding number that turns out to be off by half.

It also helps to know that most catering minimums are set in servings, not guests exactly, so a slightly conservative estimate with the option to add more closer to the date is often the safest approach — check your caterer’s notice period for changes, since most require at least a couple of days to adjust an order.

When you request a quote, an approximate number is exactly what we ask for — there’s a field for it, and it’s fine to leave it as a range.