When my sister decided to host her wedding in our parents’ backyard, she proudly announced that she was saving a thousand dollars by not renting portable bathrooms. She figured eighty guests could just take turns using the single powder room off the kitchen.
I tried to warn her. A residential plumbing system is built for a family of four. It is absolutely not designed to handle eighty people drinking wine and flushing a toilet continuously for six hours.
By eight o’clock, the line for the bathroom stretched through the kitchen and completely blocked the catering staff from getting to the refrigerator. By nine o’clock, the toilet completely backed up. The floor was covered in water, and my dad spent the last two hours of the reception plunging a toilet in his tuxedo while the guests awkwardly pretended not to notice the smell.
If you are hosting more than thirty people at a private house, you have to rent a restroom trailer. I am not talking about the blue plastic boxes you see at construction sites. You need to rent the luxury trailers that have running water, lights, and mirrors. They cost a fortune, they take up a huge chunk of the driveway, and they require a dedicated power source. Rent them anyway. Saving money on bathrooms is the fastest way to ruin a party and permanently destroy your home’s septic system.