Separate Confirmed Party Meals From Unanswered Invites — Free
Keep the uncertain portion count separate from the confirmed guest list. Follow up with nine unanswered places instead of quietly shopping as though every invitation is accepted.
The proof surface
A party budget totals costs. This measures unresolved attendance and a chosen food reserve; it neither prices a party nor predicts who will arrive.
Why the flat version breaks
Counting households as guests
Food orders need people, even when invitations are grouped.
Leaving declines in the unresolved pool
A no is different from no reply.
Using the reserve as a prediction
The multiplier is your assumption, not an attendance model.
How to work the place-setting comb
One family invitation may represent four people. Enter the number invited and the number positively confirmed, using group labels rather than children’s full names.
Remove declined places from the invited count for this planning run. Otherwise they would be counted as unanswered, which would overstate the reserve.
A setting of one reserves a portion for each unanswered person. Half a portion is a planning assumption, not a probability of attendance; keep special dietary requests in a separate confirmed list.
Use the uncertain count to decide whom to contact. Re-run after replies and send the final headcount to the host or caterer; the tool does not send messages or manage allergies.
What the place-setting comb replaces
| Question | Before | Visible working |
|---|---|---|
| Counting households as guests | Food orders need people, even when invitations are grouped. | Exclude explicit declines |
| Leaving declines in the unresolved pool | A no is different from no reply. | Choose the reserve openly |
| Using the reserve as a prediction | The multiplier is your assumption, not an attendance model. | Follow up before the order cutoff |
A local arithmetic aid replaces hand calculation, not expert review. No paid AI service is needed.
Run it on the samples, right here
FIRST-LOAD
Input is processed locally. A state link encodes your inputs in its URL: share only non-sensitive rows. Browser history, clipboard and anyone receiving the link may retain it. Optional AI use below leaves this device; it is not required.
This only counts attendance uncertainty. Confirm dietary needs directly with caregivers and food providers; never infer allergen safety from a portion total.
Data note: Everything runs in this browser tab on the place-setting comb: your invitation group | invited people | confirmed people stays on this device, nothing is uploaded, and the reading is rebuilt only when you press run.
Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a punched ticket stubs
The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the place-setting comb reading, and holds your drafts on this device — one free run, then $ 4 one-time for the layer that keeps filing.
The place-setting comb reading is complete for free. The optional $4 layer adds print, row CSV and the last five local reading summaries; it does not add hidden answers. Checkout is not configured yet; the article demo remains unlimited.
Open the separate confirmed party meals from unanswered invites companionBoundary
This only counts attendance uncertainty. Confirm dietary needs directly with caregivers and food providers; never infer allergen safety from a portion total.
What this is built on
- Method: A setting of one reserves a portion for each unanswered person. Half a portion is a planning assumption, not a probability of attendance; keep special dietary requests in a separate confirmed list.
- All sample records are invented examples. The app does not fetch measurements, policies, files or personal records.
- Google’s official pricing page, fetched 2026-09-27, lists free-tier access including AI Studio. Optional formatting only; limits and availability can change. Free-tier content may be used to improve products. Never paste private records there.
Before: Food orders need people, even when invitations are grouped. After: the place-setting comb shows the working beside each named row so the reader can change the assumption and inspect the consequence.
Optional AI formatting, not calculation
For this place-setting comb, use the free AI Studio interface only if available to you, with no paid API key. Manual entry completes the same workflow for free. Supply only fictional or non-sensitive notes. Review its output against the source; never paste unresolved questions into the numeric rows.
Format my non-sensitive notes for a place-setting comb. Return plain rows only: invitation group | invited people | confirmed people. Preserve supplied quantities exactly. Do not guess missing values; list questions separately. Do not calculate or add advice. I will check every row before pasting into the local tool.
Accepted schema: invitation group | invited people | confirmed people. No AI response is executed as code.