A practical guide to crockery hire for events: choosing plate types, calculating quantities with contingency, quality tiers, checking condition on delivery, and matching with glassware and cutlery.
A practical guide to crockery hire for events: choosing plate types, calculating quantities with contingency, quality tiers, checking condition on delivery, and matching with glassware and cutlery.
The crockery you choose tells guests something about the event before they sit down. A chipped plate, mismatched set, or wrong-sized bowl all register. Getting the selection right means working through a few practical decisions before you order.
Buffets need larger dinner plates or shallow bowls so guests can load up in a single pass. Floor-length tablecloths keep the presentation tidy at serving stations. Seated dinners need a complete place setting per guest: one plate per course, side plates for bread, and teacups and saucers for coffee service.
For mixed formats — a wedding with a sit-down meal followed by an evening buffet — order the two sets as separate tallies and be specific about quantities for each.
The standard sizes cover most menus:
Dessert plates do double duty as starter plates for most events. If your menu includes soup, order soup bowls in addition rather than substituting them for other pieces.
A practical starting point: one complete set per guest per course. A three-course dinner for 100 guests means 100 dinner plates, 100 side plates, and 100 bowls or dessert plates depending on the menu. Add 10% across all items to cover breakages and pieces that need swapping out during service.
For evening events with a different guest count, treat the evening catering as a separate order.
Standard house crockery is chip-resistant and dishwasher-safe, a sensible choice for most buffets and informal dining. Premium white china is thinner, lighter, and cleaner in appearance. At formal dinners, corporate events, or weddings, the difference in presentation is visible across a full room of tables.
Expo Hire stocks both tiers. Match the quality level to the occasion rather than defaulting to the cheapest option for every event.
Crockery should arrive free from chips, cracks, and staining. Expo Hire inspects every item before dispatch and replaces anything that falls below standard. When the delivery arrives, check a sample from each crate before laying tables. Any issue is easier to resolve before the room is set than after.
White china plates with clean glassware and polished cutlery create a consistent table that needs no further decoration. Ordering your crockery, glassware, and cutlery from the same supplier keeps the delivery window tight and makes any last-minute changes easier to handle.
Expo Hire washes all crockery in commercial dishwashers between bookings. Items are inspected after cleaning, and any piece that shows wear is removed from stock. The crockery that leaves the warehouse has passed that inspection. Return it unwashed if you prefer: a dirty return option is available for an additional charge.
Ordering too few pieces is the most frequent problem. Plate counts based on guest numbers alone leave no margin for breakages. Always add 10%. The second common error is ordering one plate size for everything. A 12" dinner plate at a starter course or a side plate as a main creates a mismatch that guests notice. Match the plate to the dish.
Order the two sets as separate tallies and specify the quantity for each part of the event.
Yes. Expo Hire stocks both tiers. Real-time stock availability is shown on the website before you commit to an order.
All items go through commercial dishwashers between bookings. Expo Hire inspects every piece before dispatch.
Expo Hire supplies crockery, glassware, and cutlery in a single order, delivered together.
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