what do you prefer?catered or home-made dishes?

If I were to throw a party, I will definitely have my food catered. Like you said, it's more practical and worry free. Maybe I'll add one or two special dishes which are not that time consuming to prepare. Besides, this is a party, I want to eat something different, or something more palatable than my cooking (laughs). For this, I will choose a caterer that serves great food that will surely be enjoyed by my family and friends.

Well it all depends on the no. of persons for those I am throwing a party. If its large group enough for that its not possible to cook a good variety of food, so I would prefer to cater it and make one or two dishes myself.....otherwise it the no. is manageable I wold like to cook all myself.....I am fond of cooking as its my recent development LOL

I am the type of person who would use a combination of both catered food and my own cooking. I know that there is so much of time and energy to be saved, like you said... but I also like to cook and I do believe that there are some dishes that I do better on my own rather than having someone else cook them.

Some of the bigger dishes might be catered, but I will make a dish or two myself... and probably some form of desert. That way, I get the satisfaction of knowing that I cooked for my guests and that they liked it; but I don't have to place the entire burden of the food on my shoulders alone as a host.

I always prefer to make dishes by myself when I call my friends to my home or I organise a party. This feels good when you do something by yourself for your friend and family. Because everybody can pay money and bring some food or book a restuarant. But it feel great if you take the pain to do it by yourself for your near and dear one.
SOmetime I do buy one item from restuarant if suppose I am out of time or I know someone like to eat something special.

I'd prefer catered...it obviously makes things easier but I usually make nearly all the food myself to save money and I know exactly what's in it.

If the guests are a maximum of 50 people then I guess I'll just cook the food, but if they are more than 50 by all means I'm calling the caterer. It's less tiresome because I won't have to worry about cleaning up after the party and cleaning up is the least I want to do.

I would like to be able to enjoy myself at a party and not have to worry about the food myself, so I think I would prefer catered food. Plus, usually when they cater, they have a little something for everyone. But, if it was a smaller party or get together, I would prefer homemade simply because I LOVE homemade food. It is more of a comfort thing.

When I throw a party I always make my own food. I have had sit down dinner parties where I have served appatizers, prime rib, baked potato, beans, salad and desserts. It is a ton of work, but such a great feeling when you can do something like this for your friends. I have had catered dinners and the food just isn't a good.
I also have had parties where I make different snacks such as stromboli, hot poppers, nacho dip and then the guests all bring a snack. It's fun to try everyone elses creations too.

I come from a family of great cooks. We have never really had any fancy parties, so most of the food was cooked by the person hosting the gathering. There have been many times when we've asked or been asked to bring a dish. This helps out the host/hostess and you get a greater variety of food with the different styles of cooking.

As time-consuming as it is, I prefer good, old-fashioned home cooking. Sure, it's easy to pick up a phone and order something to be delivered, but nothing tastes as good as something that was created with care.