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.

Mumsnet is a public forum, I’m allowed to share my thoughts. Thanks

You are, so are we. But starting a thread to argue with everyone who doesn't agree with you is abit pointless.

We didn't have any additional evening food (this was a long time ago though). LIke you we had no evening only guests. But our dinner was a bit later in the evening - a normal evening dinner time - having eaten wedding cake with champagne pretty much immediately after the ceremony. I do remember some venues being a bit weird about this as it wasn't "standard".

If you have a big meal that will go on a few hours then you don't need more food. But if you will be finished eatng by 7pm then I think people may get hungry. A "snack table" is enough depending on the snacks!

sounds great to me. definitely no need for more!

English weddings are normally exactly as you’ve described a Scottish wedding.

Yes, now, but not when we got married.

What is a 'hydration station'..?

OP answered this on P1.
There's a photograph at 16.32 on 8.3.25

It's a traditional name for it, I think as it's the first meal as a married couple.

I think it depends on the quality of the responses. Some advice is more valid than others. For example some posters seem to be ignoring the snack table and talking as if there will be absolutely nothing after the meal. Others are saying rather bizarre things like ‘you must overcater but provide fewer canapés because people won’t eat those’ 🤦‍♀️. Someone effectively said ‘it sounds like a shitshow’ . OP is quite right to call some of this out.

Just a reminder to factor in allergies and make sure your venue truly has a handle on it. I have lost count of number of weddings we have been to where we have informed the bride and groom of my DH's allergies, and even gone so far as (with couples permission) speaking directly to them, and there has been practically nothing DH couod eat, due to cross contamination. Buffets are a particular challenge for this as people put serving spoons back into the wrong dishes etc. He now brings multiple snacks, sandwiches etc to weddings and eats them in the car and comes back in.

We didn't fully understand the complexities involved until we were in it, so just sharing for info.

Nooone has said that at all. Putting on a buffet at night is 100% normal for every wedding I've been to, but like others have said I'm in Scotland. That's just what happens. Nothing at all to do with "gluttony". That you keep mentioning

LOL at very filling canapés.

We are getting married in a few weeks and have similar timings as you have outlined. We are serving bacon sandwiches at 21.30 along with wedding cake. Nothing too substantial but people will be drinking and dancing so probably will need something.