Do people expect food after dinner at wedding?

So you’ve gone from, ‘Am I feeding my guests enough?’ to ‘They should be feeding themselves before they come’. Ok. Looks like you’ve decided. Most people won’t have lunch because they’ll be expecting lots of food at the wedding. Also, if your husband is Jamaican, I imagine some of your guests will be too? They usually place a lot of emphasis on feeding guests. You may be garnering disappointment

As functioning adults, getting ready for a lunchtime wedding, we would usually grab a sandwich-type meal deal somewhere en route and/or stick a couple of emergency quaker porridge oats bars in pockets/bag to avoid hanging around starving. There’s always a ton of waiting around at weddings and if the timings have been provided in advance, it would be ridiculous on our part to fail to eat anything beforehand! We don’t expect a non-stop food-orgy to be provided all day and night long at someone else’s expense! Providing a cake and snack station is perfectly acceptable and if some guests are going to slope off early for fast food, I’d venture to say they’re probably no loss at that point in the proceedings.

I agree Jellycatspyjamas. I'm also in Scotland and for every wedding I have worked at there was always a "Second Tea" consisting of sandwiches, tea/coffee and wedding cake later in the evening after a sit down dinner. Nowadays it's often bacon rolls, pizza etc. Was always considered "tight" not to provide food later in the evening and it would be considered to be very rude not to!

Absolutely. The thing with canapés and a buffet is that there are always people who take more than their allocated amount, people who don’t like what’s on offer and people who are at the tail end of things and don’t get enough. I’d be absolutely mortified if guests were hungry at an event I was running, never mind a wedding. I don’t understand people who put so much thought and expense into things before the evening “do” and don’t feed people in the evening after they’ve been drinking and dancing. A typical wedding meal ends around 7, to go from then til midnight or later without offering a supper is tight.

Over on the “worst things at weddings” thread the most common comment is about food - too little, badly timed, unevenly spread. If people go hungry it’s the thing they’ll remember above all else. Better to over cater and have left over food - my wedding was many years ago now but I remember left over cake and bacon rolls being distributed amongst the homeless population of Glasgow after guests had their fill.

But were you going to such an esteemed venue?

Precisely

Anyone ever like you enough to invite you to their wedding?

If your guests are hungry, it will be literally the only thing they remember about your wedding.

Wearing their finest clothing pre wedding and scared of getting messy, nope!

My friend once went to a wedding where after a huge lavish reception last last thing they had burgers sausages and nuggets and sandwiches, she said everyone was thrilled!

Sounds great, but factor in that they won’t necessarily be to everyone’s taste or dietary requirement and lots of people decline canapés due to messiness and nice clothing.

How will they be hungry again at 9 when dinner won't finish till 7 and there's cake after and a snack table?
Do you eat nine times a day or something?

Your guests who have travelled across London missing lunch will be chomping at the bit for dinner! I work in the industry, but you sound like you know your guests and what’s best.

I work in the industry
1.45pm ceremony means people generally will be there early, having travelled and will miss lunch. Then have to wait for canapés.
why the gap between ceremony and drinks at 3.30pm? Are you travelling from a church or such?
I've never seen a filling canapé and people won’t necessarily eat their allocation.
IMHO your guests will be tipsy at best by 5.30pm, I’d be advising ceremony ends 2.15pm and if no travel, go straight into canapés/drinks for 90 mins, then dinner at 3.45pm and your sister is right, more food 9/10pm

Yes, people will be hungry because they've been drinking, and as others have pointed out it's not a normal day it's a party.

People will often have late 2nd food in two circumstances:

If the wedding is early and the reception meal is more a late-lunch than dinner - eg 10am ceremony, 3pm sit-down meal and people start getting peckish again by 9:30

If you have separate evening guests arriving after the sit down meal just for the later parts of the party - it would be rude not to feed them at all.

With a 5:30 meal you can get away with no 2nd serving of food if you don't have any evening-only invitees

"There will be very filling canapés, drinks, cocktails, guided tours of the venue, lawn games"

The thing being, (as I think someone else said earlier in the thread) I don't wear the sort of shoes I'd wear to a wedding that often, so the idea of then having to play 'lawn games' or go on a tour round a venue in them, would fill me with dread.

I long for a return to the days when there was a ceremony, then an hour or so where people could take photos, chat, and mingle, then a drink as you arrive at the Reception and then the meal. It seems bizarre to me that couples arrange big gaps in the day, then try and find ways to fill them. Why not just start later, and not have the big gaps ?

You’ve obviously put a lot of thought and money into your wedding. Just to be on the safe side I would do something extra for 9.45 / 10pm. Pizza van, bacon rolls or whatever just to keep the momentum up and people happy.

There are lots on this thread who are saying they would be hungry again
later and with drink flowing it’s always a good idea to