Do people expect food after dinner at wedding?

I can’t eat a lot in one go so it doesn’t matter how big the buffet is I wouldn’t be able to make full use of it so I’ll be hungry again later.

It'll be a 12 hour day, if not longer, for your guests. Some will have been to hairdressers, spent ages getting ready then the travel time, no lunch, hours of standing around before dinner, then 5 or 6 hours before they can leave.

No one is going to turn down some chips in the evening.

Agree that your meal time is a bit of an in-between time and guests may have skipped lunch as travelling. There is nothing worse than hungry guests. It ruins a wedding as they remember not having enough to eat. Not everyone will get their share of canapes and others will eat more than their share. Not everyone will like the 3 course meal. You definitely need a buffet or food van in the evening at 9pm. Are you able to add more to the snack table?

Yes it's gluttonous but people at weddings are pigs. Partly due to all day drinking. At my wedding we had a full on buffet including a massive cheese board and the whole lot was gobbled up (despite eating a meal around 5pm) so me and husband didn't even get a sausage roll. I've also been to a friend's wedding where the food was revolting so everyone was absolutely starving by 8pm having missed lunch due to the ceremony then not enjoyed the meal.

There’s been bacon rolls at around 10pm at all the weddings I’ve been to, but I don’t think dinner has been as late as 5.30, normally 3.30/4pm and the rolls have been very well received.

I don’t think you need to give people something as they’re leaving, it would be 10pm or not at all.

I've genuinely never been to a wedding where the meal took 2 1/2 hours even including speeches. I'd allocate two hours tops, unless the speeches are epic monologues.

I think it sounds like a lovely day, lots to do to entertain people. And already plenty of food!

Just because something served is 'a lot' (as you describe your dinner), it doesnt mean it keeps someone filled up. I cant eat a lot in one go, so I need little and often food, most people arent going to eat huge amounts that can keep them going for 7 hours, while dancing drinking, chatting etc etc, takes a lot of energy. Its better to have small things now and again.

They then take their drinks inside

IT's been a loooong time but we had a buffet snack table come out around 10pm. Nobody ate much of it BUT we did go and grab it all from the hotel fridge around 2am and that was brilliant. In fact, even now 26 years later, the bit from midnight to 5am when it was just our best friends and closest family sitting around in the hotel bar, drinking wine and whisky, smoking cigars and laughing our heads off was one of my favourite memories of the whole day.

At my DCs wedding, they had a taco truck come at 10 too and pretty much everyone ordered something.

Pretty much every wedding I've been to has had some kind of food in the evening around 930pm/10pm. Usually things like burgers, hog roast, pizza.

We did canapes, dinner around 6, wedding cake for dessert, and then a cheese board table from 8:30ish until the end of the wedding. I think it's important to have something to snack on in the evening, but wouldn't pay for a burger van. It'll cost tons and half your guests won't use it.

In that case I wouldn't bother serving more food later on. Dinner won't be over until 8pm anyway.

Yes absolutely have something in the evening. Especially as some guest won’t like the wedding food (it’s inevitable) so they will want something

I don’t think they’ll have time for lunch if they’re travelling more than 10-15 minutes tbh. I don’t think most people want to eat while getting ready to go somewhere dressy either. I think it’s a difficult ceremony time that’s been picked but it seems to be popular now.

That sounds nice :-) lawn games are always fun. And sounds like the venue is lovely.

Your venue/wedding planner should be guiding you on this. Put the cake and snack table out at 9pm, sorted. Don't put it out with dinner when people are already eating/full and it just sits to go stale and unappetising.

Our timings were 1.30 ceremony, 2-4 drinks reception and canapes, 4-5ish speeches, 5-7 dinner, 9:30 buffet. Not sure why PPs are so baffled by the timings, I think that's pretty standard, but Scottish so maybe it is different down south.

If we’re brutally honest, we eat loads at weddings because there’s nothing else to do.

If you have some sort of entertainment that will help pass the time and limit the amount of food people go looking for.

I wouldn’t bother.

Most weddings people actually start leaving by 10pm.
For 1pm wedding that would be people leaving home by 12 latest, probably earlier. So I think afternoon food, dinner which always drags on so it’s more like 7pm finish. Then cake after around 8pm.

The last wedding we went to was meal around 5pm, they were rushing to clear away meal around 8pm to bring out the next meal by 9pm and hardly anyone was hungry. As realistically they had been eating 5.30-7.30pm with starters, main, desert. Still full when cake came. Then not at all hungry for more food at 9pm.

i dunno i find the idea a bit ott. We are serving a lot of food. People are not those bottomless pits! But I obviously wouldn’t want people to actually be hungry.

This reminded me of something an old mate said on socials over Christmas (she works in a pub kitchen) - 'FFS people, will you stop EATING! You only have ONE ARSEHOLE!!'

😂

I wouldn't expect anything really. If you tell people on the invite it's canapes then a meal then they'll know they need to clear their plate at the meal and possibly get a kebab on the way home if they think they'll starve.

People shouldn't be thinking about how much food they can cram into their gullets for free anyway. I'd be happy with a sandwich buffet only if that's what they offered.

To me an open bar would be more valuable and appreciated! 😂

Get absolutely smashed😁 I think the secret is to keep things moving along at a wedding. Even more so if there are kids or older people present.

Some of the replies are just gluttonous. Canapes, sit down meal and a snack table and people expect you to pay for more food at 9/10pm.

Do people eat that much food on a normal day or a night out?

Yes, please do this. The last wedding we went to was at 1.30, which was just a really awkward time as we were travelling over lunch and didn’t want to risk eating in the car and ruining outfits and make up. Food wasn’t served until 5 and everyone was starving, despite the canapés. We’d have brought something to eat between the church and the reception if we’d known!