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.

Hi OP we had similar timings to yourself and no evening only guests.

We hired in a pizza by the slice van for around 9.30pm.

They offered GF/Veggie/Vegan slices.

Went down really well and imho better than a burger van as covered multiple dietary requirements.

Also "by the slice" worked much better than whole pizzas. Cheaper for us of course but also most people wanted a snack to dry up the booze but not another meal and most people only wanted a single slice if anything at all.

Tbh we had tons of food during the day and the canapés we very substantial and abundant - think mini Yorkshire puddings with beef/horseradish, glazed tofu skewers, mini fish and chips in a cone etc

Of course people who were more hungry had multiple slices - that was fine. But it meant we didn't waste money on masses of pizza being churned out for people not to eat it all.

From memory we paid a set fee for the van and then a by the slice charge on top.

And just to add the timings worked fine, nobody went remotely hungry and the cocktail/canapés gap worked brilliantly.

It sounds perfect OP.

I’ve never been to a wedding where there hasn’t been an evening buffet/ hot rolls/ hog roast etc about 9/.9.30 pm.

would be weird to not have anything.

All this talk of cheese. I hate the stuff and would have been thoroughly miserable if this were the evening option.
I appreciate, however, that this is my fault for being a weirdo

I'm in Scotland and people often offer bacon and sausage rolls in the evening.

Reassuring, thanks

I think the wedding industry is very good at upselling stuff you don't need and wouldn't miss, so a pinch of cynical detachment is necessary unless you have unlimited funds
...I do sport out of a club that's used a lot as a wedding venue. You would not believe the piles of unused stuff that gets tossed out or 'rehomed' every week during wedding season

As a premises manager I saw much the same so can believe it only too easily, @TunnocksOrDeath, but then when a provider's charging ££££ per head for something you can see why they're so keen to push it

I've always thought the key is to do your very best to think of guests (which OP clearly has) and then to just relax and enjoy the event, remembering that no matter what's offered someone will always, always complain but most will have a darned great time

This!

If the ceremony is around an hour you need to move canapés and drinks much earlier.

If thats not possible for some reason you need to move the dinner earlier and scrap the canapés or serve canapés with welcome drink pre ceremony.

I’d find it strange to have a mini buffet before the dinner buffet. Serve the chicken skewers and onion bhajis later in the evening and just have drinks before the dinner.

P yuI've only been to one wedding without an evening buffet. A light wedding breakfast was served at around 2 30pm and come the evening, the all day guests and evening guests were all absolutely starving butty I absolutely myth else appeared. We had to buy food on the way back to our hotel.
Your wedding breakfast with canapés and snacks sounds much more substantial and is being served later, but I would definitely suggest having something available in the evening. A few crackers, cheese, crisps, sausage rolls, chicken wings fruit and a couple of cakes. If you have evening only guests you will need a more substantial buffet.

5.30pm is early for dinner. I think best to offer evening food too

Good idea to offer jugs of water but I hope you don't pay a premium cos caterers are calling it a hydration station

I would make sure you have plenty on the snack table, cheeses, bread, maybe fruit platter and wedding cake and serve about 9.00. If they have had plenty to eat earlier you should be fine. It's usually the evening only people that need more substantial food.

I think people are more inclined to not eat so much at the dinner after all the canapés and then be starving after drinking and dancing. I’d do lighter canapés and then something more substantial after. The wedding that I’ve been to that people keep talking about are always those who had fun food after the dinner (fish and chip cones, pizza van, etc.).

I'm going to start calling my local the hydration station

We had a wedding last summer with similar timings. The main meal was substantial but not everyone will love it and some evening food of some sort is definitely expected / helpful.

The evening food we had was sausages, cut baguettes to sandwich-up the sausages if people wanted, condiments, salads and the cake. Loads of family made lovely salads, coleslaws etc, all perfect to go with the sausages.

Let me tell you, the only thing that went was the sausages. I'd say only about 20% of people had the cake (it was a lemon sponge, nothing controversial), and even less had any sort of salad. It was a dreadful waste with so much left over - as it had been out for hours we weren't comfortable giving it away etc the next day.

So, sausages were a 100% hit. Anything that requires a proper knife and fork was a waste, and I was shocked about the cake. Afterwards everyone said they all had loads of cake at left over at their own weddings too. Turns out, unlike me, not everyone has a sweet tooth after a day of booze.

Take of that what you will!

I'm not sure if it sounds cheap or not but what about sandwich trays and warm choc chip cookies around 9pm with fresh coffee and tea?

Drunk people get hungry. People ordered pizza to last wedding I went to without an evening buffet

DS had similar timings. They had hot canapes (that kept on coming), a tuk tuk serving local ice-cream, a sweet cart (which was incredibly popular) and a free bar/cocktails.
At around 9.30pm a pizza truck began serving. I was suprised how many people were ready to eat again.

Is it a wedding or a day trip? What kind of attraction is it, you've been clear it isn't a theme park. Although I'm not sure why you're referring to a theme park as I didn't reference one in my post. Did you quote the wrong person?

The thing is, if your wedding starts 1:45pm people haven't had lunch as such because they're getting ready, travelling to the wedding and getting settled into their seats by 1:30pm. They'll probably have had a brunch. But they'll be hungry soon after the wedding. Canapés don't touch the sides. By the time people sit down to eat they'll be really hungry.

The evening after finishing the meal is quite long and I think some further snacks are a good idea.

Cheeses and biscuits on a side table - along with the cut-up wedding cake - for people to graze at.

Some of these responses 😅 are wild!

Firstly, your wedding day plan sounds wonderful and it is YOUR DAY!

Secondly, the snack table is definitely enough for the evening. With cake on top of that. I would not go to the additional expense of a food truck - weddings are so expensive as it is.
Unlike many, you are eating your meal that bit later too, so think everyone will survive!

Good luck on the day and just enjoy! 💐

😂

Please tell us what this “world class attraction” is?

My BIL and SIL had canapes and cocktails, then a 4 course dinner, then a midnight seafood buffet. Hardly anyone touched the seafood buffet, it was such a waste. Crab legs, lobster, king prawns....so much waste. The dinner was plenty

Is it at London Zoo? I went to a wedding there, it was great.