Party food & drink planner template

Free build guide: Party food & drink planner for WordPress

This guide rebuilds the Party food & drink planner from this site in Gravity Forms: 4 inputs, 7 live results and no submit button. Expect about 33 minutes by hand. The template above is the same form as an import file, and the bundle adds a PDF version of this guide with a screenshot of every setting, plus the stylesheet.

You will end up with:

• Drinks to stock
• Appetiser bites
• Non-alcoholic drinks
• Beer (bottles or cans)
• Wine (750 ml bottles)
• Spirits (750 ml bottles)
• Ice (lb)

What you need

• Gravity Forms (any license) — Calculation fields and radio values are in core.

Everything here is core Gravity Forms. No add-ons.

1. Create the form

1. Go to Forms → New Form and name it Party food & drink.
2. In Form Settings → Form Layout, set the CSS Class Name to fo-live-only. Step 3 uses it to hide the submit button.
3. Leave the form open in the editor; the fields come next.

2. Add the fields, in this order

Field IDs are assigned as you add fields. If yours come out differently, change the {Label:ID} references in the formulas to match your IDs. Settings not mentioned stay at their defaults.

1. Guests · Number · ID 1
Number Format 9,999.99; Default Value 20; Layout: half width, on the same row as its neighbour (drag the field beside it in the editor; no CSS class needed).

2. Hours · Number · ID 2
Number Format 9,999.99; Default Value 4; Layout: half width, on the same row as its neighbour (drag the field beside it in the editor; no CSS class needed).

3. Guests drinking alcohol (%) · Number · ID 3
Number Format 9,999.99; Default Value 75; Description “Kids, drivers and non-drinkers bring it down.”.

4. Food · Radio Buttons · ID 4
Custom CSS Class (Appearance tab) fo-segmented.

Choices (tick show values and enter each value):

• Appetisers are the meal — value 6 (selected by default)
• Appetisers before dinner — value 3

5. Drinks to stock · Number · ID 5
Number Format 9,999.99; Description “Two drinks in the first hour, one an hour after that, alcoholic or not.”; Custom CSS Class (Appearance tab) fo-result; tick Enable Calculation, Rounding 0.

( {Guests:1} * ( {Hours:2} + 1 ) )

6. Appetiser bites · Number · ID 6
Number Format 9,999.99; Description “Across 4–6 different items.”; Layout: half width, on the same row as its neighbour (drag the field beside it in the editor; no CSS class needed); Custom CSS Class (Appearance tab) fo-result fo-result--sub; tick Enable Calculation, Rounding 0.

{Guests:1} * {Hours:2} * {Food:4}

7. Non-alcoholic drinks · Number · ID 7
Number Format 9,999.99; Description “Cans, sparkling water, mocktails; plus water for everyone.”; Layout: half width, on the same row as its neighbour (drag the field beside it in the editor; no CSS class needed); Custom CSS Class (Appearance tab) fo-result fo-result--sub; tick Enable Calculation, Rounding 0.

( {Guests:1} * ( {Hours:2} + 1 ) ) - ( ( {Guests:1} * ( {Hours:2} + 1 ) ) * {Drinking:3} / 100 )

8. Beer (bottles or cans) · Number · ID 8
Number Format 9,999.99; Description “40% of alcoholic drinks.”; Layout: half width, on the same row as its neighbour (drag the field beside it in the editor; no CSS class needed); Custom CSS Class (Appearance tab) fo-result fo-result--sub; tick Enable Calculation, Rounding 0.

( ( {Guests:1} * ( {Hours:2} + 1 ) ) * {Drinking:3} / 100 ) * 0.4

9. Wine (750 ml bottles) · Number · ID 9
Number Format 9,999.99; Description “40% of drinks, 5 glasses a bottle. Round up; split red and white.”; Layout: half width, on the same row as its neighbour (drag the field beside it in the editor; no CSS class needed); Custom CSS Class (Appearance tab) fo-result fo-result--sub; tick Enable Calculation, Rounding 1.

( ( {Guests:1} * ( {Hours:2} + 1 ) ) * {Drinking:3} / 100 ) * 0.4 / 5

10. Spirits (750 ml bottles) · Number · ID 10
Number Format 9,999.99; Description “20% of drinks, 16 pours a bottle, plus mixers.”; Layout: half width, on the same row as its neighbour (drag the field beside it in the editor; no CSS class needed); Custom CSS Class (Appearance tab) fo-result fo-result--sub; tick Enable Calculation, Rounding 1.

( ( {Guests:1} * ( {Hours:2} + 1 ) ) * {Drinking:3} / 100 ) * 0.2 / 16

11. Ice (lb) · Number · ID 11
Number Format 9,999.99; Description “1.5 lb per guest, more in summer.”; Layout: half width, on the same row as its neighbour (drag the field beside it in the editor; no CSS class needed); Custom CSS Class (Appearance tab) fo-result fo-result--sub; tick Enable Calculation, Rounding 0.

{Guests:1} * 1.5

3. Hide the submit button

The results are live, so nothing needs submitting. Add this filter to your theme’s functions.php or a code-snippets plugin; it hides the button on any form carrying the fo-live-only class:

add_filter( 'gform_submit_button', function ( $button, $form ) {
	return str_contains( (string) rgar( $form, 'cssClass' ), 'fo-live-only' ) ? '' : $button;
}, 10, 2 );

Or with CSS alone: .fo-live-only_wrapper .gform_footer { display: none; }

4. Put it on a page and make it look like this

Add the form to any page with the Gravity Forms block, or the shortcode [gravityform id="X" title="false" ajax="false"]. The form inherits your theme’s styles; the classes you set in step 2 are hooks for the look you see on this site:

• fo-result on a calculation field makes it the big teal result panel.
• fo-result fo-result--sub makes the smaller secondary figures.
• fo-segmented on a radio field turns it into a segmented switch.
• Two fields on one row is the editor’s own column layout: drag a field beside another and the row splits in half. No CSS class is needed, and the old gf_left_half Ready Classes are deprecated.

The bundle includes the two stylesheets that implement those classes, with notes on matching your brand colours. Without them the form still works; it just looks like your theme’s default Gravity Forms styling.

How the maths works is explained under “How it’s calculated” on the live Party food & drink planner.