Let a shared meal fit the appetite people brought, not only the plan you made.

A host arrives at the table with a plan already invested in: courses timed, quantities calculated, an evening imagined. The guests arrive with a day behind them, which may have left them ravenous, barely hungry, or wanting only to sit. Insisting on the plan turns hospitality into a schedule that people have to keep up with.

Put the food out and let people take what they want, including less than you hoped. If someone stops early, do not press, and treat leftovers as ordinary rather than as evidence that the evening went wrong.