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.

Yes absolutely have something in the evening. Especially as some guest won’t like the wedding food (it’s inevitable) so they will want something

Thank you

In that case I wouldn't bother serving more food later on. Dinner won't be over until 8pm anyway.

We did canapes, dinner around 6, wedding cake for dessert, and then a cheese board table from 8:30ish until the end of the wedding. I think it's important to have something to snack on in the evening, but wouldn't pay for a burger van. It'll cost tons and half your guests won't use it.

Pretty much every wedding I've been to has had some kind of food in the evening around 930pm/10pm. Usually things like burgers, hog roast, pizza.

IT's been a loooong time but we had a buffet snack table come out around 10pm. Nobody ate much of it BUT we did go and grab it all from the hotel fridge around 2am and that was brilliant. In fact, even now 26 years later, the bit from midnight to 5am when it was just our best friends and closest family sitting around in the hotel bar, drinking wine and whisky, smoking cigars and laughing our heads off was one of my favourite memories of the whole day.

At my DCs wedding, they had a taco truck come at 10 too and pretty much everyone ordered something.

They then take their drinks inside

Just because something served is 'a lot' (as you describe your dinner), it doesnt mean it keeps someone filled up. I cant eat a lot in one go, so I need little and often food, most people arent going to eat huge amounts that can keep them going for 7 hours, while dancing drinking, chatting etc etc, takes a lot of energy. Its better to have small things now and again.

I think it sounds like a lovely day, lots to do to entertain people. And already plenty of food!

I've genuinely never been to a wedding where the meal took 2 1/2 hours even including speeches. I'd allocate two hours tops, unless the speeches are epic monologues.

There’s been bacon rolls at around 10pm at all the weddings I’ve been to, but I don’t think dinner has been as late as 5.30, normally 3.30/4pm and the rolls have been very well received.

I don’t think you need to give people something as they’re leaving, it would be 10pm or not at all.

Agree that your meal time is a bit of an in-between time and guests may have skipped lunch as travelling. There is nothing worse than hungry guests. It ruins a wedding as they remember not having enough to eat. Not everyone will get their share of canapes and others will eat more than their share. Not everyone will like the 3 course meal. You definitely need a buffet or food van in the evening at 9pm. Are you able to add more to the snack table?

Yes it's gluttonous but people at weddings are pigs. Partly due to all day drinking. At my wedding we had a full on buffet including a massive cheese board and the whole lot was gobbled up (despite eating a meal around 5pm) so me and husband didn't even get a sausage roll. I've also been to a friend's wedding where the food was revolting so everyone was absolutely starving by 8pm having missed lunch due to the ceremony then not enjoyed the meal.

It'll be a 12 hour day, if not longer, for your guests. Some will have been to hairdressers, spent ages getting ready then the travel time, no lunch, hours of standing around before dinner, then 5 or 6 hours before they can leave.

No one is going to turn down some chips in the evening.

I can’t eat a lot in one go so it doesn’t matter how big the buffet is I wouldn’t be able to make full use of it so I’ll be hungry again later.

I am not a teeny tiny by any stretch of the imagination.

However, I can't see how people could be that hungry after a three course meal and cake.

I would never expect a three course meal at 5.30pm and then more food, plus cake a few hours later! That seems like an insane amount of food.

People who are traveling can have a big breakfast or bring a snack if they can't wait that long to eat.

I think if you're doing canapes at 3.30, people will not be hungry again by 5.30 and may not eat much dinner, making it more likely they will need something later on.

If this snack table and the cake table are available later on the evening for anyone who is hungry, and there are no separate evening guests, then I don't think you need anything else. As long as there is something available to eat, that's the main thing.

I don't get why people are so confused with the timings.
I get married next week, our ceremony is 1.30pm, drinks reception and canapes afterwards, called through to tables at 4.15 for speeches then dinner, Evening guests arrive 7.30pm, first dance at 8pm, buffet at 9.45pm
Again, this is Scotland though

Sorry, but if they are eating dinner at 5:30, then dancing and socialising with no food until midnight, they are going to be starving. Also if they are starting drinking at the ceremony, and there's a 6 hour period with no food, it will get very messy.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy or super expensive, but you do need to have snacks available.

Weddings are like Christmas where you can eat much more than you usually do, I think it's all the hanging around. I suspect people might expect food around 9pm just because that's what a lot of other people do.

Noone gets full up on 4 x salmon blinis!

I went to a wedding with THE BEST canapes. Big delicious BBQ pork belly 'lollypops', succulent chunks of southern fried chicken, I can't remember what else but there was plenty and it just kept coming! It was ace. I think there was bhajis, too.

I'm guessing those that can't imagine the canapes will be sufficient must have been fed as if they were toddlers 😂

I think it is expected.

We went to a wedding in November and there was a gargantuan evening buffet - all hot food. Having had a 3 course meal at about 5 pm, I could not even think about eating, but most people seemed to be all over it. There were no evening guests either, it was all the day guests eating.

Every wedding I have been to has had evening food. The most popular tends to be trays of rolls and bacon or sausage. Starts to soak up the alcohol.

Your snack table doesn’t sound that appetising to me and would rather have a little bit of stodgy food at the end of the night than snacks throughout the night

There is the planned snacks table with samosa, falafel, cheese twists etc. though, which I read as being for the evening. Plus cake.