September 3rd, 2010 
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Question by Jennifer C: How many servers should I have at my wedding for 250 people with a family style dinner?
Where the servers bring platters of food to the table as opposed to a pre-portioned plated dinner or a stand-up buffet meal?
Best answer:
Answer by af
8 or more
Think of the bussing, not just the service. Plus people do ask for things like steak sauce, missing silverwear, more water, some chicken without sauce, etc. etc. It’s a lot more work than you’d think.
Shout unto God… I would do at least 3 servers maybe even 4.
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Four. I’m having 90 people and they recommend I have two servers.
let your venue figure that out, don’t stress over details like that. once they get your head count they are the ones concerned with staffing enough people to serve you all night.
how many people per table and how many tables are you having?
I would say 6 tables to each server so if you have 8 people at a table then 5 servers.
Yes, I would let the venue figure it out since they know the servers and how fast they can work, how attentive they are, etc. But, since it’s family style, that means replacing platters and bowls, bread, butter, etc. And refilling drinks. Six or eight would be kept hopping but it’s possible. If I was the one choosing, I would go with 10 just to make sure. That’s 25 guests each and that’s enough. I wouldn’t want my guests to be sitting there waiting for something to drink and the meal’s almost over before they get it, just because there weren’t enough servers.
But maybe they will have things very streamlined. So ask first. Or are they leaving it up to you?
I would say 2-3 tables per server. That way guests dont feel like they are waiting forever and food wont get cold.
I would have 1 server for every 3 tables, so about 8-9 servers for your group, depending on how many people are at each table.
Let the caterer guide you, they are the ones with the experience.
Better to have more, than less, though.
We’ve only been to one wedding with a family style dinner, there were tables of ten, and there were nine of us at our table. Four were men, three were growing teenagers – and the serving dishes weren’t even making it all the way around the table – and there were long waits to get a server’s attention for assistance with refiling them. Consequently, we were eating at all different times at our table, and it was really not nice.
So that really turned us off this style of dinner.
Buffets are MUCH better – for both you, for planning, and for your guests.
We had a formal buffet dinner for just over 200, and it was wonderful.
I worked at a banquet hall for a few years and the average was that each server had about 4 tables and each table usually had about 10 people so I would say between 6-7 servers. Serving for a family style dinner works almost the same as serving for the pre-plated, especially if you are still serving soup and salad to each person. Anything less then 6 people might make things slower
You shouldn’t worry about that, that’s the venue’s problem to figure out not yours
But to answer your question it depends on how many tables you have really. If you seat 10 at every table then you should have 25 tables. I work at a banquet facility and we usually have 1 server for 3 tables (no matter what style the dinner is) so you will need at least 8 servers (if not more) but again don’t worry about it, every venue does it differently. That’s just the one I work at, again it’s their thing to work out not yours so don’t even worry about it 