To think you can have cold food at a wedding

[CheeseIsEverything]

Our ceremony is at 4pm and we are looking to then put on food (one lot of food, no wedding breakfast or sit down meal) at around 6:30pm.

Do you think a cold buffet would be acceptable or would you expect hot food?

MsLayla

I would expect / prefer hot food if I was a guest. If I'd travelled to your wedding, brought a present, maybe taken the day off work (shift worker) or possibly even stayed over night etc I'd definitely think the least required is a hot buffet or food truck. Preferably a sit down meal but understandably that's not to everyone's budget or taste. Buffets can be chaotic and unappetising

When I got married last year it was important to me that everyone was well fed with nice quality food, plenty of decent booze and a lively band

I agree with this. I got married last year, the guests spent a lot of money and made a lot of effort to come, including taking time off work, I wanted to provide them with all that you mention. A cold buffet is fine it it's a small, local, informal wedding though.

Thanks all. As the set up is informal and local we have gone for the cold buffet.

I must say, the company we have booked with looks really great. It seems a lot 'classier' than the standard cold buffets I've seen before.

We've also paid additional for proper plates, cutlery and serving staff too as PP suggested!

I think it sounds lovely. The only thing I'd suggest is making it clear on the invites what the form is. If I were expecting a three course dinner then I might only have a sandwich for lunch, and then would struggle if it turned out to be a cold buffet.

@SarahSissions
Struggle with what?

I love a good cold buffet
Line my stomach with some sarnies, salads, meaty baked goods and I’m good to hit the bar
Sounds like my sort of wedding for sure. Would much prefer that than sitting down for a three-course meal and worrying about spilling soup or gravy down my dress.

@ourkidmolly if I had expected a full meal so eaten a smaller lunch I would become very hungry and my energy levels would drop.
I thinnk it’s a nice idea, I think you just need to let people know

I love a buffet so I’d be really happy with that. It always irks me when I hear people complaining about stuff like this, they should be grateful for the invite and that you’re putting on any food at all.

Sounds great! People will love it. You absolutely do not need to tell guests in advance. Usually the style of invite reflects the style of the day. If it’s relaxed and informal throughout nobody will expect a 3 course meal anyway.

We had a cold buffet after our wedding. No fannying about with table plans and all that jazz, people just picked their food (and we paid for food for almost double the amount of guests to make sure there was enough to go around because there's something about a buffet that brings out the greed in a lot of people and we didn't want to run out) and sat wherever they liked. After that, they just bought their own drinks and sat out in the beer garden enjoying the sunny weather.

I'm going to go against the grain and say that I hate buffets, especially cold ones. I really hate cold ones. Too much beige, too much stodge and it's just all meh.

I used to work at a wedding venue when I was younger and spent many, many hours preparing buffets. There either isn't enough food or there's far too much. Some guests are incredibly greedy and the waste can be awful. Some people just turn into pigs for some reason. And the queuing....argh! A cold wedding buffet is my idea of hell.

It was a cheaper option but we found that guests much preferred hot individual basket food (i.e. chicken & chips etc) to a cold buffet. Although they never told the bride and groom that, they just told us staff!

Mammyloveswine - yours sounds delicious.

There's definitely some snobbery out there about buffets at weddings, but to my mind this is far more hospitable than the current rude trends of having 'tiered' guests with no food during the evening, and/or expecting guests to hang around like spare parts while the 'A list' eat a hot meal (which are never any great shakes when mass catering is involved, IME).

I love a cold buffet; would always prefer that to a plated hot meal, to be honest. That said, last time I went to a wedding with this set up, a couple of the chaps grumbled afterwards. (Not in a massively ungracious way, to be fair, just commenting that their preference was strongly for hot food.) But I loved it, so to each their own!

We had a cold buffet in the pub and it went very well. Only thing that didn't get eaten was a massive ham joint, because everyone was too pissed to carve bits off it. My nan took it home in a carrier bag Friends had scones, jam and clotted cream. Being 'allowed' to eat as many cream scones as you want is amazing, I think I had about 5.

We had a picnic, truly delicious. Still have friends saying how lovely it was nearly 2 years later.

Summer sounds fine! I had a cold meal at a wedding in December and frankly it was terrible. It was cold enough already and I felt like I hadn’t eaten. Cold food in summer is picnic style so should be lovely.

As long as there’s enough that’s the main thing. We married at the same time as you 4pm and had a hot buffet still cheaper than 3 course meal but but more substantial. Pudding was wedding cake. They’d bad canapés earlier too. It went well altho the buffet items that went down best were bbq so maybe a bbq is way forward?

Some great suggestions here. I love a good cold buffet as long as there is a good variety of food, plenty of it and a plan to stop massive queues everyone will be happy. I still feel annoyed about the wedding I went to where they ran out of food before our table, the food did look pretty crap though. Hope you have a great day.

We had a buffet, it worked really well. Similar timescales to yours too. I was worried about people getting hungry later in the evening, but we just brought leftovers from the buffet out, there was also enough spare to take some home after too.

I've been to one other wedding that had a buffet & that was also really nice - the church WI served it through the serving hatch.