Somewhere around a fortnight before your event, your caterer will ask you for one thing: a count. Thirty-two chicken, fourteen fish, six vegan, and a short list of named people the kitchen needs to handle separately. Everything in this guide exists to make producing that count take five minutes instead of an evening with a highlighter.
What your caterer actually needs
Two different things, and confusing them is the usual cause of trouble on the day:
- A number per option. How many of each main course, each starter, each children's meal. This is a count, not a list of names - the kitchen is ordering ingredients from it weeks earlier.
- A named list of exceptions. Who cannot eat what, by name and by table. This one has to carry names, because a plate has to reach a specific person.
If you hand over a single column of free text saying things like "no nuts I think" and "veggie (not the husband)", your caterer has to turn it into those two things anyway, and they will do it by ringing you.
Ask once, and ask precisely
"Any dietary requirements?" is the question almost everyone asks and it is the reason almost everyone ends up with a mess. It invites a sentence, and a sentence cannot be counted. Ask instead as a fixed set of choices, with one free-text box behind it for the genuine exceptions.
| Ask | As | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Main course | A choice of the actual dishes on your menu | It is the number the kitchen orders against, and it has to match the menu word for word |
| Dietary requirements | A free-text box | Real requirements are too varied to list, and this is the answer the kitchen reads individually |
| Allergies | A separate free-text box, asked separately from the above | An allergy is a safety matter, not a preference - see below. Buried in the same box as "does not like mushrooms" it gets treated like one |
| Children's meals | A choice, asked only where the household has children | Children are usually a different cover at a different price, and asking everyone produces noise |
| Accommodation or transport | Yes or no, per household | It is a household question, not a per-person one, and you need it early enough to block-book |
An allergy is not a preference
A vegetarian who is served fish has had a bad evening. A guest with a nut allergy who is served something cooked in the wrong oil is a medical emergency at your event. Keep the two apart from the moment you ask, and pass allergies to your caterer as their own list, with names and tables against them.
Tell the kitchen, not just the venue
Allergy information given to a venue coordinator in March does not automatically reach the chef in September. Confirm it directly with whoever is cooking, in writing, when you give final numbers - and again on the day with whoever is running the service.
When to ask, and when to stop
Ask at the same moment you ask people to reply. A guest filling in an RSVP is already thinking about your event; the same guest emailed separately six weeks later is not, and you will chase them twice. See RSVP wording, deadlines and chasing for the deadline arithmetic - your dietary answers arrive on the same schedule as everything else.
Then stop. After you give final numbers, changes cost money and goodwill, and a late menu swap for one guest is a favour to ask rather than an instruction to give. A genuine allergy discovered late is the one exception, and should be phoned through the moment you hear about it.
Doing it on Plan My Do
Your guest list carries your own questions rather than a fixed set of ours. A question is a choice with named options ("Main course": chicken, fish, vegan), a free-text box, or a yes/no, and you write whichever ones your menu and your venue actually need. A question can be limited to one invitation tier, so "Main course" can be asked of your day guests and nobody else.
Guests answer them inside the same RSVP that carries their attendance - one reply per household, covering everyone on the invitation - and a question only applies to people actually coming, so a declined guest never sits in your denominator making the list look unanswered. You will see the running aggregate against each question as answers arrive, and every answer comes out in the CSV export alongside the names, so the file you send your caterer is the same file you have been reading all along. You can also record an answer yourself for the guest who phones you instead.
What to hand over, two weeks out
If you have not built the list itself yet, start with how to build a guest list - the age bands and household structure there are what make this count possible. And if you are still choosing who is cooking, wedding caterers in Cornwall and party catering in Cornwall are the places to start.
See how the guest list and RSVP tracker works for how the meal choices and dietary requirements you ask for turn into your caterer's count.
Let the answers count themselves
Ask your own questions on your own guest list, collect them with the RSVPs, and export the lot as one file your caterer can read.
Start planning