Do people expect food after dinner at wedding?

[Budka]

Ceremony is at 1:45 pm. We are serving very filling canapés and cocktails at 3:30pm and dinner at 5:30pm. There will be the actual cake, a homemade cake table, hydration station and a snack table. The wedding ends at midnight. The meal itself is A LOT, we are doing a sit down buffet (think Las Vegas buffet).

I've seen trends where a pizza/burger van turns up as guests are leaving.

Would you as a guest expect more food after dinner?

I personally wouldn’t. I do feel people get weird at weddings re good where they almost expect to be fed and watered on the hour, every hour. But in everyday life you would probably be happy with eating far less (I do appreciate dancing, drinking causes hunger).

But would you expect to be given more food after dinner and cake?

My sister thinks we should order a load of pizza to send people away with.

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.

I think some of the problem is that you said you are serving canapés when you are not and are actually serving a full buffet before dinner.

Canapés are one mouthful so that you don't get anything stuck in your teeth and don't smear your lipstick. They are not intended to be filling!

Personally, if I went to a wedding and was offered pizza at the end of the evening, I would judge. And it wouldn't be a positive judgement. I am well aware this makes me a snob on this particular point.

What OP is offering sounds like an amazing afternoon and evening. I cannot get me head round the idea of needing another meal later on after a large meal at 5.30. It may be a buffet, but it is being served to the table, so it is more that there are multiple options than a typical self service buffet. And there are snacks/cakes available to graze on. People are not going to be 'starving'. Ridiculous hyperbole.

yes, food for people late at night if they ate at 5.30pm (early for dinner) will be much appreciated. We had a cheese/ meat board was all eaten up! we also had canapes then dinner.

You have a very early starting wedding - people who have to travel will not have had lunch.

Unless you are feeding guests the buffet meal exceptionally early or you have additional guests coming only for the evening reception, no there is no need to provide more food than you already are

Well don’t eat any of the pizza then and leave it to those that want it

Plenty of people on this thread have said that it is fairly normal to have something like that at the end of the evening

Personally I wouldn’t thank you for lawn games and a table of samosas and cheese but I wouldn’t judge the bride for it if that’s what they want to have

Snobbery is not a good look

That’s absolutely nothing like what the OP has described. She’s not dumping them in the bar for 4 hours, she’s serving them drinks and canapés for significantly less time than that, and it sounds like they don’t have to go in their pockets at all during that time. Bit mean to bandy words like shitshow around when you’re talking about something quite different.

My god - all the food people want is just gross.

Canapes, big lunch/dinner, snacks, cake and late night food.

I'm surprised no-one has suggested you lay on breakfast for them somewhere!

In that case I’d move the dinner back to 6pm and serve bacon/veggie sausage rolls at 10pm

OP your wedding sounds like a wonderful upmarket London wedding and people are being ridiculous. You are having a free bar, wonderful reception food and a huge buffet meal.

given it sounds like a top end event, the reception food will be plentiful, presumably the wait staff know to make sure they get to everyone.

in my experience a reception with lots of food is totally the norm. We had mini fish and chips, mini burgers, mini mac and cheese, Thai chicken skewers, little bowls of veggie chili etc.

you say the main buffet is being served at the tables lovely. Even if it’s not then surely each table gets called up in turn for food and the caterers are used to this and a) are behind the table serving some of the food and keeping an eye and b) they bring out more as it goes along

people are being ridiculous. Nobody is going to go home bored from a wedding like you’re describing. It sounds wonderful

I was thinking the same. Can people really not function without a steady stream of heavy food?

Though in fairness it's a long day. 10pm is sufficient for any event.
Remember when marrying couples used to be eager to head off alone on their adventures?

People skip the canapes because they are chatting and saving themselves for the actual wedding breakfast. I've got an outbreak of family weddings at present and the general advice seems to be that it is better to overfeed than underfeed. Nobody ever went home from a wedding saying 'that was too much food' because if they aren't hungry then they simply don't eat it. But you should hear the complaining if there ISN'T enough food.

Always over cater. It's better safe than sorry.

OP it's not just half a day though. From beginning to end including travelling for your guests, its going to be well over 12 hours for some people. Yes you're feeding them 3 times but imo these arent 3 full substantial meals, there's one meal. The canapés are a small plate, and not everyone will choose to have their full allocation. Often people will have one or two so they dont over indulge and leave enough for the other guests. And your evening snacks are basically cheese and abit of cake. You say you cant control what others choose to eat, and whether they will feed themselves beforehand. But what you can do is anticipate that not everyone will eat absolutely everything they are offered, and as others have said its better to over feed than under feed. Its not gluttony for a special occasion like a wedding to ensure your guests are well fed.

And in any case, if you can’t be gluttonous at a wedding, when can you. Relax a bit!

Bowls of chips and rolls. Chip butty station at 10. Not too expensive and welcomed

It is turning a bit peak mumsnet "Goodness I will have had 5 almonds and an apple at breakfast time and won't feel hungry until the next morning !"

It's the timings that make it tricky. For example I would probably eat a lot of the heavy canapés if I had been drinking for a while meaning I wouldn't be particularly hungry for the buffet dinner 2 hours later. I would probably appreciate some cheese later in the evening though.

Plus not all the attendees are going to be teeny weeny mumsnetters with appetite of a bird. There may be teenagers and gym fanatics and a whole spectrum of appetites.

Haha! What would your negative judgement be?! What can you possibly find negative about offering a slice of Pizza as a late night snack?!

I think having generous bowls of nuts and pretzels on each table after the meal is sufficient; people can soak up the booze but there's no cooking involved and little service to repeatedly refresh them.

We had mini bacon rolls at 11:30pm and after hours of dancing and drinking they were very welcome. I also went to a Scottish wedding where they had haggis as a late night snack too

Weddings used to have the reception ( not a bloody breakfast!! WTF is that about) after the ceremony. There would then be a break in proceedings followed by an evening 'do' where food usually buffet/ hot sandwiches would be served.

Hi OP, I think it sounds like a fantastic wedding! I think you are putting on plenty of food for everyone. I actually think that the drinks reception may be shorter than you expect as my experience is getting guests on to the buses is like herding cats! I think if you did extra food later - like 10pm, people would like it and eat it , but no one is going to starve without it. Hope you have a brilliant day and the sun shines!

Of course the caterers want you to have cocktails and canapes! It's an extremely expensive add-on to your wedding.

We went and had photos done at a different location but our guests survived with a welcoming glass of fizz/oj/water until we got there.

I've been to weddings where the evening food was devoured (including ours) but if there aren't evening guests it tends to go to waste. I've seen huge buffets thrown away. I like the idea of snacks, cheese and biscuits, or bacon rolls later on. My sit down meal was 2pm. If yours is early evening I can't imagine anyone being hungry for anything more than a few picky bits at 9 or 10pm.

I get you OP. Drinks and canapés on a scenic terrace sounds lovely, it will occupy guests during photos and help those who've had to miss lunch. But dinner will only be max 2 hrs after so maybe you could make canape offering lighter in favour of the optional burger van at 9pm for those getting the late munchies or needing to soak up booze?

I disagree. I would totally expect cocktails and canapés. If there was just a glass of fizz and a bit of water the guests would all be complaining.

We went to a wedding like this. We were a bit worried when we realised that there would just be canapés, but they kept coming and we had plenty to eat. If people know that there won't be a meal later I'm sure they they'll be fine, but if you do want to do something later that's obvioiusly OK too.

You're just about to eat a HUGE buffet. Cocktail markup is horrendous. We paid corkage and had champagne imported especially and it still worked out vastly cheaper 😂.

It's really weird how entitled wedding guests are becoming. Rather than celebrating with the bride and groom it feels like there's a points card system which you have to pass. My guests didn't "expect" anything other than possibly a Wedding Ceremony and a bit of food.