Could you troubleshoot my 'non-standard' wedding and reception

[GangstersLoveToDance]

So, the typical wedding nowadays seems to be marriage at 1pm, 3 course meal, evening buffet.

We want to do something a bit more casual at the reception, so this is our rough idea:

Church wedding, 3.30pm
Guest pics outside church, 4pm-4.30pm

4.30pm - 5.30pm, Guests would then walk to the venue (2 minutes away) and have canapés and drinks on arrival whilst df and I nip off for some pics alone. It's a beautiful setting with a breath taking view (above the beach, Gower Coast) so we thought people would be ok with no 'entertainment' for an hour ish and can mingle just with a bit of background music.

5.30pm - 7.00pm, df and I arrive at venue and mingle a bit. Then speeches (very short and sweet, just a couple of words from df, my dad and best man). Then a bit more mingling lol.

7pm - Evening guests arrive and semi-hot buffet is laid out for all guests, day and extra evening. When I say semi-hot, i'm thinking more than a few sarnies but less than a full hot meal. Considering it will be the only 'real' food served though, I want it to be filling for the day guests.

Then a DJ and typical wedding party until 11.30pm.

A couple of extra details - we would do the room up like your 'typical' wedding - round tables, nice table centres etc. But there would be NO top table and NO table plan. We're thinking of maybe having some sort of welcoming sign coming in, asking them to grab a table or suchlike. Considering there's no sit down meal, it seems silly to do up a table plan and put place settings and so on.

We would have around 70 guests at the church and possibly an extra 30-80 in the evening.

What do you think? Would you enjoy this sort of wedding or feel cheated of a meal? Would you find it 'uncomfortable' not having a table plan as a guest? Etc. Every wedding I've been to has included a full meal and buffet, table planned and so on and we wanted something a bit different but i'd like to see if anyone can forsee problems we've not thought of!

We were evening guests at a wedding reception recently , the only food available was a cheeseboard ( it was a lovely cheeseboard ) but we stupidly had assumed we would have proper food , and were surprised and starving
So proper food is needed for evening guests too IMHO

we have gad that problem before, ended up starving because we had expected food when there wasn't any. However, this doesn't necessarily mean proper food is required, just that it needs to be made clear what to expect.

Eg include a brief timetable with the info sent out with the invites "evening entertainment with light refreshments / bacon sarnies / whatever"

I went to a similar wedding a few weeks ago, the main differences were:

• mocktails, chilled elderberry & coke served after service no alcohol.

• canapes served were mini quiches, sausage rolls, salmon blinis, spring rolls, veg samosas & pakoras so something for everyone. B&G went to costco & bought massive catering packs of canapes for £50ish for 120 guests.

• 2 hours later dinner was served which was a caribbean buffet so spicy rice, jerk chicken etc it was lovely.

*Wine was served with the meal & people were sober because they hadn't drunk themselves stupid while waiting for the meal.

• tables were named after all the places the b&g had visited and each table was called up to the buffet to cut down on queues.

• the b&g danced down the central aisle to some funky nigerian tune when entering the reception, everybody stood up and clapped & cheered them on.

• groom being Nigerian insisted on walking round the venue clinking his glass with everyone after the toasts. Thats the traditional nigerian way, it was a brilliant wedding lots of fun. They took the western format and gave it a nigerian & carribean twist to reflect their heritage.