to think English weddings are frequently sh*t?

[CraggyIslandTouristBoard]

...and in particular the timing of the so-called wedding 'breakfast' (a term which should in any event should only be used for a morning meal).

Wedding I recently went to:

• All guests staying in same hotel, breakfast (actual breakfast) at 8:30am


• Wedding starts 11am


• Canapes at 1pm EXCEPT we only got served 1 single canape. That was it. And we were on the lookout for them, and moved to stand near the kitchen when we saw they were being served but hadn't reached us. (Quite a lot of alcohol though but really not much fun drinking it because we're starting to get effing hungry.)


• Wedding 'breakfast' scheduled for 4pm, starters actually not served until 4:20ish, main course after 5pm by which point we're beyond hangry/fainting with hunger.


• 8pm cake, followed by evening buffet. Which only gets picked at because we ate lunch so late.


• We ate breakfast in hotel (actual breakfast) 8:30am


• Wedding was 11am for an 11:30 start, though didn't actually start until 12:20ish


• Canapes served about 2pm. On that occasion we got offered a total of 3 canapes. Seeing friends of bride and groom we've not seen for a while, conversation invariably goes (us) "Long time no see - how are you?" (other guests) "Pretty hungry actually!"


• "Breakfast" Lunch officially 4pm but everything seemingly running late, we were on the very last table to be served and got starter about 5pm and main just before 6pm. Dessert 7:30pm


• Pizza from 9pm, plus wedding cake. FFS we only finished dinner an hour and a half ago!!!!

At another wedding I remember something similar happening and people heading to the nearby pub to stock up on crisps to keep them going.

What is with this ridiculous tradition of serving a meal so late in the day with guests having effectively nothing to eat in the meantime?! These were relatively lavish weddings, I don't expect to be fed constantly/repeatedly/anything particularly fancy and would be quite happy with a decent meal at lunchtime and then just some cake (or a cheeseboard or pizza or an evening buffet if the wedding couple is so inclined). The weddings must have cost at fortune and yet at each of them it was clear people were just too hungry for most of the afternoon to really enjoy it.

How does anyone think this is a good idea?!

If you've organised a wedding with similar timing yourself, why?! Just why?!

Thank god we didn't have the kids with us, but in future if we do take them to a wedding I think I'm going to have to bring a picnic for them (and us).

(By way of background I am English myself, and had an evening wedding with a mountain of canapes followed by a full 4 course dinner straight after).

I'm generally more interested in the music than the food.

At each of these weddings there was heaps of food - the couples must have spent a fortune - but it was all served at the end of the day. It's doubly crazy because as well as the guests feeling hungry all afternoon, each time there have been piles of evening buffet/cake/pizza left because it's been served only 90 minutes after we've finished the late afternoon meal.

@worriedatthistime you ABSOLUTELY cannot blame this one on Americans. We do not call it a wedding breakfast and most American weddings are much later (4pm) and go straight into canapés then early dinner. All the weddings I’ve been to have either been local (WAY less expectation of travel), been to 2 that were overnight but both had an endless stream of food/drink so guests were comfortable. Every single English wedding I’ve been to (maybe 10-15?) involved a venue a couple hours from where most guests live and the odd food timing described.

This to me is heaps better than the expensive weddings I've been to - I don't expect anyone to spend more than they're comfortable with, and am quite happy to go off and have a cafe lunch if that's the setup of the day. It's utter madness to spend a fortune on food much of which goes to waste, but for guests to be hungry for most of the day!

I hate weddings and make any excuse not to go. I went to my sister's 15 years ago and that was the last one. It was nice and I am glad I went but I just don't see the point of all the fuss so avoid them at all costs.

At each of these weddings there was heaps of food - the couples must have spent a fortune - but it was all served at the end of the day. It's doubly crazy because as well as the guests feeling hungry all afternoon, each time there have been piles of evening buffet/cake/pizza left because it's been served only 90 minutes after we've finished the late afternoon meal.

I would have expected the venue/caterers/wedding organiser to have had some input into those food timings TBF.

I always have emergency snacks in my bag at weddings

@Happyhappyday apologies i know noone in england who refers to it as a wedding breakfast either
And a wedding won't be near all the guests as families are spread out
Wedding breakfat must be more of an elite / posher emglish phrase as not one single person i know uses it
I have probably been to 50 weddings in the uk
All were between 1-3 pm with dinner 4-5 ish , evening guests arrive from 7 pm , buffet foot at 8pm
Normally wedding is within 5-30 mins or where bride or groom live as expected and yes many guests do travel as family and friends are spread out

Yes I'd prefer a much shorter session. Leave felling you enjoyed it rather than guilty about having to work out the earliest time one can politely slope off from the evening part.

Guests brought food to our wedding which is probably why we ended up with load left over.

Loads

This is the origin of the term wedding breakfast

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_breakfast

The crappest wedding I went to (not UK) was a 12pm ceremony and only 2 biscuits each to tide guests over until being fed at 8pm. The happy couple and their parents fucked off to a pub between the church and isolated, over-priced country hotel leaving guests stranded and ravenous for hours without a clue about what was going on. There was a lack of seating and heating too.

The logistics of the venues meant an hour's travel to the church so we'd had breakfast at 10am. We'd had sandwiches in the car after the full mass before the hour's drive to nowhere.

When we married the following year, we found timings fairly limited with venues. We chose the later 2pm wedding to maximise travel time and allow guests to fit in a brunch/ lunch around the preparations. The wedding breakfast was 6pm. We sent out the anticipated timings and a map indicating places where people could eat after travelling to the ceremony. While it was a country hotel, it was only 15 mins from a small town that was on the route. We also paid for additional canapés, wine and soft drinks for our guests' comfort. There was travel time, but the venue was comfortable and of a sensible budget. Options more locally were rather limited.

I got married at 2:30pm, no wedding breakfast. Went straight from the church to the reception, where we had pimms and plenty of canapés. Speeches and toasts happened, then straight onto a hog roast with pasta and salads. Wedding cake for desert, 3 different flavours. Also the women from my family all created varied puds so we had bannoffe pie, Eton mess and lemon meringue on offer too. My friends always say how well fed they were.

We don't drive so get trains etc to weddings.

We assume we will be fed okay. I usually stick a brunch bar in my handbag but

A) not got a car to store tons of snacks in
B) can't drive to anywhere nearby if venue is in middle of know where
C) often can't but anything beyond dribks at venue if not a hotel

So often a few hours standing around waiting for photos. Often outside in light drizzle. Even though I don't wear heels, smarter shoes are never comfy standing around for hours in. Never anyway chairs.

If I was told to wait around but given a cup of tea and a comfy sofa and a book, I'd be fine. Even give us a game to play. 90 mins of polite chit chat with vague strangers is never fun. Especially when you are all politely pretending you are not being slightly rained upon or cold.

Neither of the weddings I describe was held in a hotel - we stayed in hotels which were a good 20-30 minutes drive from the wedding venues which were in the middle of nowhere. There was no means of getting any food other than that which was served at the wedding itself.

I've never been to a wedding in Wales or Scotland, sadly, so am not qualified to tar them with the same brush (or not!)

Have you been to weddings on every town and village in England then?

That’s bad planning on part of the B&G. If you have an 11am wedding you should have guests sitting down to lunch at 1/1.30 - that’s what we did.

You still get an hour post wedding service for champagne and photos. Then you feed people again in the evening.

If a wedding starts at 1/2/3 then the onus is on the guest to eat a decent lunch beforehand, as the meal won’t likely start until 4/5pm.

Science would beg to differ:
www.sciencefocus.com/news/being-hangry-is-real-and-theres-science-to-prove-it/

Not meaning to sound like a prat but why is the English, other nation in the Islands and NI bashing on here not called out as xenophic? If you swapped English for another descriptor, people would be rightly annoyed?

Because the weddings weren't held hotels, they were held at wedding venues in the middle of nowhere. There was nowhere even to go and eat a sandwich (assuming I'd packed one) other than disappearing into the bushes or in the toilet 🙄

And I do. It’s rude.

It's really not all about the free food - I'd be quite happy to go to a wedding with no food if that's what the bride and groom want for their big day. The point is that it's madness to spend a fortune on a wedding in the middle of nowhere (so there is no way anyone can get any food themselves) and leave people until late afternoon without feeding them, when the conversation of many of the guests was how hungry they were feeling and that they hoped the food would come soon. And then to serve so much food late pm and evening that much of it goes to waste.

Madness.

Of course a lot of people get bad tempered if they're hungry. It's obvious.

And you shouldn't have to bring your own food to a wedding. There should be enough, at decent intervals.