New to smoking

Welcome to SMF! You should try Jeff's Smoking Basics 5 day Ecourse, you'll learn a lot. If you have time to cook ahead of time, my suggestion would be to do some Boston butts. You can cook and pull them ahead of time and just reheat it when its time to eat. I'm not sure about this but, I think you try for 1 lb. uncooked meat per person when you do pulled pork. So for 25 people, about 3 8-9 lb. butts, and you should be fine. Smoke at 250 for 1 1/2 hours per lb. So about 13-14 hours. 

I would definitely say butts. The meat is pretty forgiving and you can smoke ahead of time and reheat it (maybe save some drippings from the butts and reheat or check out any of the finishing sauces on this site). If you are worried about quantity, you can always serve the pork with slider buns. The smaller bun might limit the amount people take. Who doesn't like pulled pork though, so they might just take more buns!

Good luck, hope it comes out the way you want. Either way, enjoy!

Butts, Beans, and mac and cheese with some coleslaw.  For the amount of people 2-3 will work fine.  You will find it is very forgiving and easy to work with.  In regards to wood, I recommend some apple or cherry with pork.  If you cook ahead and need to reheat, put some apple juice in the bottom of the pan and then put the meat in and reheat in the smoker.  Always adds a nice touch to see it come out.  Where you really tend to impress is in the seasoning, make sure to include some salt and sugar in that rub to help balance out the meat. 

Other then that, welcome and enjoy your new found life obsession.  If you are married your wife will learn that your smoker is your secret lover.  At least that is what my wife says.

Hello, Dunk.

Ned's suggestion to smoke Pork Butts for pulled pork is good advice.  IMO it is the best solution for feeding large groups a smoked meal.  First, butts are very forgiving cuts of meat.  And pulled pork reheats very easily and well, so you could smoke and pull the pork ahead of time, then just reheat the day of your gathering.  Use the search window at the top of the page to browse "pulled pork" or "butts", and you'll get many threads and posts with great info on prepping, cooking, pulling, resting, storing, etc.

BTW, it looks like this is your first post.  When you have the chance, stop by the Roll Call Forum and tell everyone a little about yourself.  It will give members the opportunity to give you a proper SMF welcome.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

Red