L.A. Wedding Caterers offers a wedding reception buffet. Suppose a menu is planned around five different salads, seven entrees, four side dishes, and eight desserts. There are eight different choices of salads, ten different choices of entrees, eight different choices of side dishes, and ten different choices of desserts. How many menus are possible?

Question

Vocaloid · Answer

For each type of menu item, apply the combination formula.

Starting with the salads, there are 8 total choices and they will choose 5 for the buffet. Therefore, n = 8 and r = 5. The combination formula is: nCr = n! / (r! * (n – r)!). Plug in the appropriate quantities and evaluate to see how many possibilities there are for the salads.

Repeat this process with the entrees, side dishes, and desserts.

Finally, multiply the # of possible combinations of salads, entrees, side dishes, and desserts.