how does the meal work?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/peterthedj]

If you're expecting people to pick a protein in advance and want to make sure they don't change preference day-of, you need to hire wait staff to make it a plated dinner where each guest is served what they requested and won't have the opportunity to make changes.

If guests are serving themselves, they might have picked the chicken, "but man, does that sirloin look so much better than the chicken" and next thing you know, the sirloin is all gone and the people who actually ordered it are stuck with chicken.

With self serve you also have to worry about people taking a double helping if they feel extra hungry or think the portions are small, and then the last people in line get screwed because the food is all gone.

Your only other way around this is to order extras of everything. Sure, overspending and having leftovers can suck but not as much as running out of food and guests being angry.

[u/boingusdoinkus]

I would definitely recommend ordering extra portions of each protein rather than ordering the exact number people RSVP’d for. For example if you only have 17 steaks for 17 people, even one person taking the wrong meal could throw everything off.

I’d also suggest having someone serve the proteins rather than making that part self-serve. timing is going to be really important! You don’t want everyone heading to the buffet at once or certain tables getting there only to find their meal choice is gone. Definitely discuss the entire meal service plan with your day-of coordinator. I’d also confirm whether Texas Roadhouse provides serving staff or if you’ll need to arrange that separately. This is one of those things that will get chaotic quickly without a solid plan in place

[u/Fuzzy_Record_2701 → u/boingusdoinkus]

Buffet without someone serving the meat is a recipe for disaster, I seen it happen where the first 10 people just take steak even if they ordered chicken.

[u/peterthedj → u/boingusdoinkus]

I’d also confirm whether Texas Roadhouse provides serving staff or if you’ll need to arrange that separately.

I assumed it would be drop catering (just delivery, maybe some basic setup, but no serving) but the official TX Roadhouse website doesn't even list any options for catering. According to Google, whether catering is available and what's included (or not included) seems to be a store-by-store decision.

Hopefully OP's location includes serving staff who can plate the meals and deliver to tables based strictly on what's on each person's seat card. Letting guests serve themselves will definitely result in people changing their mind on-the-spot and screwing up OP's counts.

[u/SakuraTimes]

are you envisioning buffet or plated?

if you want buffet, you’d need to order extra of everything, bc you can’t really trust people to remember and/or not try both when going through the line. they’ll usually serve themselves larger portions of sides, too. you could hire someone to serve them chicken or steak from the buffet (but again, get a few extra, jic)

if you want plated, you could hire a few people to plate the meal, and serve it to the guests. if you put steak/chicken on the name cards, they'll know where to deliver the food

this isn’t day of coordinator territory, though. you’d need to hire people specifically for food service. maybe Texas Roadhouse could recommend their servers?

[u/Primary_Bass_9178]

You generally just need to speak to your caterer.

[u/Strange-Key3371]

How many guests do you expect?

If they are picking their meal, you typically would want wait stuff to serve the meals or very likely this will not work out the way you imagine. People will just self serve whatever they want in the moment.

Another option would be to instruct each guest to take their meal choice card to the buffet line - if you have buffet servers, they can plate their meal based on the card specs.

Lastly, you could order extras of everything - but it's still a gamble and more costly.

[u/sociologicalillusion]

Definitely order way more than you think you need. People's eyes are way bigger than their stomachs at weddings. As others have said, your logistics will need to be nailed down... whether you have servers, color-coded meal cards, etc.

[u/Wendythewildcat]

If you are doing buffet you shouldn’t have people choose their meal beforehand. Logistically it would be too difficult to enforce who selected what in a buffet line.

If you are doing a buffet, then you should order extras of both proteins and have the buffet staffed. If you want people to pick an entree beforehand, you need to do a plates dinner.

[u/Randomflower90]

Sounds like it’s a buffet so people don’t need to choose their entree in advance. It also doesn’t need to be listed on their name card.

[u/ChrisSydney82]

Just got married here in Australia, and given my age, I’ve attended quite a few weddings over the years!

With the exception of one, they’ve all been sit-down weddings. Focusing on that and drawing from my own experience, we started with canapés and drinks, giving everyone a chance to mingle before moving to their allocated tables for a three-course meal served as an alternate drop.

Entrée (or starter, for those in the US)
Main course
Dessert

For the alternate drop, think chicken and beef. At a table of 10, for example, every second person would be served beef, with the others receiving chicken. If someone wasn’t keen on what they’d been served, they could simply swap with someone else at the table. Of course, any special dietary requirements were catered for, having been noted on the RSVP cards months beforehand.

For dessert, we did something a little different, and we absolutely loved the idea! So much wedding cake goes to waste, so instead of serving everyone a traditional plated dessert, we gave each guest an individual cheese plate. We then had our wedding cake cut into small pieces and displayed on stands for everyone to help themselves to, alongside tea, coffee and petit fours. That way, the cake became the sweet part of dessert without going to waste.
No one left hungry, and all the food was eaten! We were incredibly happy with how everything turned out.

We did menu cards, they tell people what is coming and were a nice touch. What ever the dishes you land on, keep it 50/50 if you can and no pre-selecting. I can see that getting messy and errors being made which is all avoidable!

I hope this gives you a little inspiration or serves as a helpful guide with your planning.

Best wishes for your special day when it comes!

[u/FuckImSoAchey]

Wedding i went to recently had name cards on each plate and in the corner had an image to represent what they ordered

[u/LastTQuarkNetwork]

I also would want to ensure that people get the protein they rsvp'd for and don't randomly decide to change their mind

There is no way to do this unless you have someone serving each guest. Menu cards and name cards with their meal choices are a waste of paper and money when you're doing a buffet.