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The number that changes twice: guaranteed counts
Nobody knows how many people are coming until quite late, and everybody has to commit to a number before then. The guarantee date is the trade's answer to that, and it is one of the few conventions in catering that is genuinely universal.
The mechanism is simple. Some agreed number of days before the event, the customer confirms a final headcount. After that the number can go up but not down. You cook for the guaranteed figure, and you bill the greater of what was guaranteed and what actually turned up.
That last sentence is the whole point, and it is worth stating on the quote in those words. It protects both sides: the customer is not billed for a hundred and twenty when eighty came unless they promised a hundred and twenty, and you are not left holding food for forty people who were confirmed and did not appear.
Counting the days properly
Two details decide whether this works in practice.
Working days, not calendar days. A Saturday wedding with a seven-day guarantee lands its deadline on the Saturday before, which is a day nobody is answering email. Count in working days and it lands on a Thursday, which is a day somebody reads their inbox.
The lead time is yours, not theirs. The right number is however long you need to order, prep and staff — which for a plated dinner is not the same as for a drop-off lunch. Different menus can reasonably have different guarantee windows.
The failure that costs money
It is almost never the customer refusing to confirm. It is that nobody asked.
The guarantee date passes quietly, everyone is busy, and the question gets remembered at the point where the food is being ordered. Now you are calling somebody two days out to ask a question you should have asked a week ago, and the honest answer — "I don't know yet" — is useless to you.
The fix is not a policy. It is a reminder that keeps arriving until the number is in, and it should arrive at you, not at the customer. The customer who is asked to confirm will often just repeat the number they gave in June. You are the one who knows the question needs a real answer, and you are the one who knows who to call.
What about the ones who go up
Upward movement after the guarantee is normal and is usually accommodated, within reason, because the alternative is a guest with no plate. It is worth deciding in advance what "within reason" means for you — a percentage over the guarantee is the common approach — and saying so, rather than deciding it under pressure on the Thursday.
Where it interacts with the deposit
If your deposit is a percentage of the total, and the total moves at the guarantee, the balance moves with it. That is fine as long as the quote says which number the deposit was taken against and what happens to the difference. It stops being fine when the customer discovers the arithmetic at the end.
What this means for your website
The guarantee date is counted in working days from the event, per menu, so a Saturday event does not get a Sunday deadline. Once it passes, the headcount can go up but not down.
The reminder goes to you and keeps arriving daily until the final number is entered — with the customer's name and phone number in the email, because that is a call rather than a screen. It stops on its own the moment the number is in.