Why the meal question is the expensive one
Headcount is easy. Meal breakdown is where money leaks. Order 200 vegetarian meals for a room that turns out to need 120, and you have paid for 80 plates nobody eats. Order 120 for a room that needs 200 and you have a much worse evening.
At typical Canadian catering prices of $35 to $50 per plate, a 60-plate miss is more than $2,000. That is not a rounding error on an event budget. It is the photographer.
Most people discover the real breakdown three days before the event, by scrolling back through WhatsApp and counting by hand. It is a bad way to spend an evening and it is not accurate.
What guests can tell you
Guests tick their meal preference on the same screen where they confirm attendance. It is one extra tap, so people actually do it, which is the whole point.
Vegetarian
Counted separately from vegan, because they are not the same thing and caterers know it.
Vegan
No dairy, no egg, no honey. Worth its own count once you have more than a handful.
Halal
A clear count you can hand to a kitchen that needs to source and prepare separately.
Kosher
Usually catered separately and per-plate expensive, so an exact number matters more here than anywhere.
Gluten-free
Coeliac guests need genuine separation, not a salad. Give the kitchen the number early.
Jain
No root vegetables. A kitchen that has not cooked Jain before needs warning, not a surprise.
Allergies
A free-text note for nuts, shellfish, sesame and anything else. This is a safety field, not a preference.
Child meals
Counted apart from adults, because they are usually priced apart too.
Counted per function, not per event
If your event runs over more than one day, a single dietary total is almost useless. The people at Friday's dinner are not the same people at Saturday's reception, so the breakdown is different too.
Hloo Events keeps the counts separate by function. You get a table like this, and you can hand each row to the kitchen responsible for that day.
| Function | Total | Veg | Non-veg | Vegan | Halal | GF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday welcome dinner | 92 | 34 | 51 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Saturday reception | 238 | 96 | 124 | 7 | 11 | 5 |
| Sunday brunch | 61 | 28 | 30 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
That is an illustration of the shape of the output, not real data from a real event.
Getting it to the caterer
Caterers and venues do not want a login to your dashboard. They want a file. Export CSV from the dashboard and email it, or open it in Excel or Google Sheets first if you want to reformat it.
Because the export is generated from live replies, you can send an updated version whenever the kitchen asks for a revised number, rather than recounting by hand each time.
Allergies deserve a note, not a checkbox
A tick box that says "allergy" tells a kitchen nothing useful. Hloo Events gives guests a free-text field so they can write "severe peanut allergy, airborne" or "shellfish, EpiPen carried" in their own words.
Those notes come through on the export attached to the guest's name, so the kitchen knows which plate at which table needs attention.
Questions people ask
Can I add a meal option that is not on the list?
Yes. Custom questions and custom options are part of the Pro plan (CAD $50 for one event), so you can add whatever your kitchen needs to know.
Does a guest have to answer the meal question?
You choose. Some hosts make it required so the count is complete, others leave it optional. Required generally gets you a better dataset.
What about plus-ones and children?
Each attendee gets their own meal answer, including plus-ones and children, so a family of five can register three vegetarians and two child meals.
Can I see who chose what, or only the totals?
Both. The dashboard shows totals for planning and the CSV export lists individual guests with their choice, which is what you need for place cards and table service.
Is the dietary count available on the free plan?
Yes. Vegetarian, non-vegetarian and Jain counts work on the free plan up to 400 replies. The wider set of options and custom questions come with Pro.
How late can guests change their meal choice?
Right up until you close the RSVP. You decide when that is — usually whenever your caterer needs the final number.
Other things Hloo Events handles
Start free, upgrade only if you need to
Free up to 500 guests. Pro is CAD 49. Ultimate Planner is CAD 199 for up to 5 events.