Ellen - I had 9 of us for afternoon tea. I posted about the food on the TR...here...
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=51408669&postcount=2025
I had my parents, MiL, DH's Brother and his wife, my brother and the 3 of us. DS was the only 'child' there; so it was rather adult'ish.
We used to do High Tea when I was growing up in SE Asia. And it really is something that my family loves. We had originally thought to go to one of the hotels in the city for Mother's Day....but they are very expensive here. We're looking at a minimum of about $50 - $80 per person normally (remember that cost of living is more expensive here) and the prices get jacked up for Mother's Day. So, when my brother and I discussed it, I volunteered to host it. I had a lot of fun just looking at recipes and deciding what to cook/prepare and what to outsource.
Believe it or not, the one that was the most fiddly and the most amount of work were the sandwiches. I had 3 different fillings:
Cucumber sandwiches. In my travels on the internet, it turns out that the 'best' cucumber sandwiches have either been dipped in vinegar or had a light salt pickle. I used a potato grater to finely slice the cucumber. Then I added salt and let it sit for about 20 minutes. Everything then needed to be thoroughly rinsed. The salt pulled out excess liquid and once I rinsed out the salt, I was left with cucumber that wasn't so watery and with a deeper cucumber taste. When I made the sandwiches, they weren't soggy at all.
I made a cream cheese with lemon (grated rind and a squeeze) and dill to go with the cucumber.
Egg sandwiches. I just grated hard boiled eggs, added some mayonnaise, salt and pepper. When I made the sandwiches, I added some pea shoot sprouts.
Mediterranean mix. I chopped up some roasted eggplant, roasted bell pepper, black olives, green stuffed olives, marinated mushrooms with red onion. I added a splash of red wine vinegar to it. I was going to add some cherry tomatoes; but when I tasted it all, it just didn't need the tomatoes. I made the sandwiches with some hummous.
Because I had either the hummous or the cream cheese, none of the sandwiches needed butter.