My daughter's college graduation party last year. Her ceremony was in Dec. because she finished a semester early. She wanted a couple of rooms in downtown Sacramento near her and friends favorite hangouts. So we rented a couple of rooms. The party was to be held at the hotel. I cooked all the food, ribs, tri-tip, chicken, clam chowder, two salads (one a seafood salad), three appetizers, desert, etc, and we hauled the food and setup equipment down to the hotel, but because of a conference we couldn't get the ground floor, plus there was a timing issue for use of the banquet area, and we couldn't setup until a certain time. Add to that we were also attending the grad ceremony 15 min. away (plus parking time) at the Sac Kings Arco Arena. We would have 1 hour after the ceremony to haul all the food down to banquet room and setup, including drive time.
So with everything in the room, plus we had to mix some items still, and heat up others including the chowder.
We go to the grad ceremony, it was great for my wife and I not only were we excited that our daughter did great and graduated, but we were happy the next month we wouldn't have as many bills, (that made two of three graduated from College with NO loans). The wife stayed to do the picture thing, and I rushed back with my sons and we began setup for about 35 people. The banquet area wasn't a true banquet area with a kitchen or lots of things to help serve food, just chairs, tables, not even a sink. However the room was decorated nice and really was comfortable because they had in addition to the tables/chairs, couches and lounge chairs. Because we were limited on time, I had setup hot plates and warmers in the hotel room, and when we returned I started warming up the chowder and had one appetizer and a salad that only tasted great when the ingredients were freshly put together/mixed. If it smelled like a kitchen before, it now smelled like a cooking kitchen. While I did that my sons hauled everything down to the banquet room. The last thing to go was the chowder finally hot.
It was a ton of work, everyone had a wonderful time, I had a lot of extra food, several of the hotel staff ate well that night. Our daughter was very appreciative. She had been inviting some of her friends to our Sunday BBQ dinners, a few would come, now even more accept her invitation.