Regardless of the size of your high school class reunion, arranging for food can be tricky. There may be a wide range of ages and appetites attending, and no two classes have the same budget. Here are things you should keep in mind when deciding:

Catering the event will allow classmates to spend less time in the kitchen and more time planning other aspects of the reunion. But it can be expensive, and someone will need to pay upfront. In your early communications with classmates, suggest several different options and see what your classmates would be willing to spend. Also keep in mind the variety of eating habits that your class might possess - vegetarians may not be so fond of that ultra-BBQ buffet you’ve put together.

One benefit of catering is that you may not have to worry about providing utensils, tablecloths, napkins, etc. Be sure to find out ahead of time if the catering organization will do cleanup as well.

Having a potluck dinner can be a good way to go about it for several reasons. First, everyone spending a little bit of time making a dish is a lot less stressful than a few people making a ton of food. It also distributes the costs fairly evenly as everyone pays for their own groceries.

Second, if you have a variety of eating habits, you can just about guarantee that everyone will be able to enjoy least one thing they like to eat, even if it’s their own dish.  Within the context of the two options above, keep in mind your audience. For a family-friendly event, it may be a good idea to avoid fancy or exotic foods that children may turn their nose up at. Not only may that be a waste of your grocery store or catering fund, but hungry kids can be grumpy kids.

• Be sure to target the food to the location. A come-and-go event at a bar may be more suited to finger food, whereas if you’re dying for a fancy sit-down dinner, there may be a local hotel or banquet hall that’s the perfect choice.
• If the class decides on handling the food preparation themselves (via potluck or otherwise), make sure that you have plenty of tableware, napkins, etc.
• Alcoholic beverages can add up quickly if you decide to provide them. Don’t forget them to add them to any upfront costs that you charge your classmates. Or, simply go for a BYOB event.
• Mmmmm … dessert. Who doesn’t love dessert? Let your classmates know ahead of time that it’s available, so they can save room for it.

Those are a few basic considerations to keep in mind when it comes to food planning. If you have any other suggestions or unforeseen issues you’ve had to deal with, feel free to leave them in the comments so you can help another class out.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 3:38 pm and is filed under High School Alums. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.