Dessert table

For finger food type servings, a caterer once told me that if there is other food, 6 pieces per person.  If no other food 12 pieces per person.  That is how I plan and it seems to work.

Wow!   6  to 12 pieces per person seems like an awful lot!  I work with several high end caterers who seem to believe that 2.5 - 3 pieces per person is sufficient if it is dessert after a meal, and a few more than that if it is just sweets.  I tell people they need to know their guests a little bit.  I've done  dessert buffets where there were two pieces per person and there were leftovers and other times when there were 7 pieces per person and not a crumb was left--and I make sure I always tell my clients this.

Ultimately, I believe it is almost as bad to have too much left as not enough, because then the client might think you oversold on purpose.  For a dessert buffet with fruit and cheese, I don't think I'd offer more than 5 -7 pieces per person--and my pieces are always pretty small.

I'm sure there are also regional differences. For example, I believe Texas eats more and larger amounts of sweets than California (where I am ) so take that into account as well.

I did a dessert table for my daughter's wedding: 23 separate items; 100 of each; all in individual servings; each with an attractive, unique garnish; entire thing presented beautifully on two 8' tables. We had 90 guests and very few leftovers (after a substantial buffet meal and wedding cake). Once my husband opened it to the guests--who had politely been eying it for two hours--they swooped in like a flock of vultures. One woman told me she managed to make it through 18 of them!

I'm getting ready to do one for my friends non-profit so trying to keep costs down. One thing I told her that if you keep the variety/options down people won't want to try to sample everything!  However, if it's really, really good as I know all of everyone's desserts here are you still may get people taking more than planned.  Also, if there are kids - kids will take everything and take a bite and then not eat it.  So factor that in as well.

It will also depend on the other factors that the other posters mentioned - other food, time of day even.

Good luck!

I've been doing sweet tables professionally for 25* years.....the standard banquet halls, country clubs and bakeries use is 2.5 per person.

It also depends on the size of the item.  With minis, I can definitely see 6 per person.  For larger desserts, I would say 2-3 per person.