BOY do we have leftovers.

Attrition was high on the morning of the party. This is partially due to the "people with small children" demographic intersecting with sniffles season; folks' kids would get sick and they'd let us know they wouldn't be coming. At least one guest sent regrets because he was not feeling well himself. Then there were the people who simply didn't come. We had twenty-eight, not forty.

We would have had way way way too much food even if we'd had forty. We're talking five TIMES too much food, here.

I estimate people ate:

About 1/8th of the fancy olives
About 1/20th of the hummus
Less than 1/8th of the jicama
Maybe 1/8th of the baby carrots
None of the celery sticks
About 1/8th of the provolone and the salami
Maybe 1/16th of the cheddar and the pepper jack
About 1/8th of the crackers
Most of the chocolate chewy cookies with nuts
About 1/4 of the TJ's truffles
Maybe 1/8th of the gingersnaps
Maybe 1/4 of the butter cookies with sprinkles
None of the pfeffernuesse
About 1/3 of the contents of the crock pots
About 1/2 of the rolled-up lavosh sandwiches
1/12th of the sodas
1/6th of the beer
Most of the fruit juice
All of the wine (except they brought some, so I do have a few bottles now)

I bet a lot of this was due to the layout of the food vs. chairs, the fact that the party wasn't very formal (thus people were wearing clothing that was comfortable to sit down in), and the fact that everyone there had a big interest in common. Eventually everyone sat in big groups, some folks in chairs and some on the floor, and had lively conversations. People didn't get up to go fetch food.

Next time: less food, food closer to where people will sit down, and buy more wine. :)

Things that went well / badly

1. The guest list had a big, consuming interest in common. MAN did people talk. I think this alone made the party a success.
2. We had enough wine. It is really handy that I had a bunch beforehand.
3. The cats didn't try to escape. They were actually quite social.
4. Tablecloths that drape close to the floor can hide a multitude of clutter-related sins.
5. The furniture layout with lots of room to move around worked very well. (We'd done a fair bit of rearranging.)
6. The trash and recyclables containers were sufficient and were well-marked enough that people found them with no trouble.

Not So Good:
1. Amount of food was way too much. This contributed to...
2. My feet. Food prep is not a sitting-down activity, and a lot of it is not stuff I could do ahead of time. By the time guests arrived I'd been on my feet for eight hours. I was in way too much pain to be a "good hostess" and mingle, bring people drinks, etc. I tried, but not very hard.
3. White wine was pulled from the fridge too early, so it warmed up too much. Keep extras in the fridge longer. On the flip side, the soft drinks can be pulled out into ice chests much earlier. (Fridge space management was a huge issue.)
4. (minor) People asked for permission to open wine. Next time we could put up a "feel free!" sign. We had signs on everything else!