Ceremony at 1pm.. what time for food?

[MickeyMouseShithouse]

I’ve booked our registrar for 1pm - what time would you then have food?

2 options:
1.30pm champagne for guests while you do photos
2pm Wedding breakfast eg lunch.

1.30pm guests have champagne while you do photos
then 2.30pm wedding cake and tea and speeches. All done by 5pm

Depends how much you want to spend. Champagne, cake and tea much cheaper than a full wedding meal.

Whatever you do please don’t keep your starving guests hanging around til 5/6pm for food

It depends on your plans for your day.
Recent wedding I attended
Ceremony 1300 lasted about 35/40 mins

Drinks reception 1345-1630 with captained and photos being taken

1630 seated for speeches with dinner served 1700.

Two and a half hour drinks reception? I'd be legless!

This. Now matter how amazing everything else is, if they are hungry that will be what they will remember.
Definitely champagne and canapes after, and then probably an early dinner. Maybe entrees starting at 5? Also if you can have a timetable of the day sent with the invite so they know what is happening when (ie to eat lunch before they come!!)

Mine was something like:
3.00pm ceremony (it was a long one)
4.00pm champagne and canapes
6.00pm dinner
8.30pm speeches and dancing
12.00 venue closes

Thanks all! I had 3pm in my head, but we do have canapés too so perhaps canapés at 2pm then dinner at 3?

We’re having a documentary style photographer; so very few ‘posed’ photos, both me and DP are too awkward and shy to stand and position ourselves to smile at a camera.. much rather be caught having fun in the moment🤭

We had our wedding start at 2pm
( we had music, friends singing playing instruments, three readings, not a full mass) can’t remember how long it lasted average I suppose.

The reception was at the same location, so no time wasted travelling.
But after photos, champagne we found our pre arranged 4pm start for food was too early
So I’d say leave 2and a half hours before the meal.
Ps. We had evening guests arriving at 8pm but that too was too early, but then we did have games in between courses.
So for a 1pm ceremony given past experiences with our wedding and a few friends weddings I’d suggest a 3:30 meal and an 8pm evening

What time will people stay til? Just if dinner is at 3, then will you have snacks later on (assuming it's late), if everyone goes home after dinner then no issue of course. That will also be nice with your photos as you'll have more time with yiur guests. How lovely OP, I'm so excited for you!

Canapes and champagne while photos are being taken. 3pm food

We were at a 1.30 wedding recently. Church over at 2.30. Had to travel from church to reception arriving at 3. Drinks reception then until 5 with canapés. Good ones so not hungry. Seated at 5 followed by some speeches so 5.30 got starters.
I would think if you are having drinks/ canapés eating at 4 would be good as people need to digest that first . I wouldn't rush it as you don't want meal to be over too early.

Just communicate to your guests to manage their expectations and assuming lunch will happen at least half an hour later than planned - if you don't then some will assume they are going to be fed shortly after the ceremony and there's always way more faffing than expected. I would prefer a little card in with the invite saying "the meal won't be till 3pm so please arrive having had an early lunch or hefty brunch" rather than arriving at 1pm expecting to be able to hang on for a late lunch at 2ish and then the faffing is still going on at 14:45 and I am ravenous.

This.

I always eat before wedding at 1pm but people will appreciate being fed.

Ah yes I didn’t think about rushing through the day to be honest, not something we want to do! The ceremony and reception is all in one location and half of the guests are staying at the location, the other half are either staying nearby or just coming for the day - I will put a message out with some recommendations for places to go for breakfast (getting married in North Devon as we take a trip there every year, it’s sentimental for us)

I purposely chose a later wedding so that the food could come later as at the moment our main meal is costing nearly £8000 on food alone.. the thought of paying anymore for evening food is making me wince and I’m
not sure it’s within our budget. We have however opted for a cheese-tier-cake which is put out in the evening with breads, crackers and chutneys.. so there will be something at least.

or am I mad for not doing evening food? I’d assume most people would be busy dancing, drinking and mingling to bother even notice.. but perhaps we should look at options? I’d hate for anyone to go hungry (although the food is a bbq with a huge selection of things to eat rather than a set meal)

you are mad for not doing evening food if the ceremony is at 1pm, unless the party will be shutting down early evening. people need feeding about every 5 hours. You can get away with only one meal if the ceremony isn't till 3pm, then you feed them at 6 and they can last the whole evening on that.

@FeinCuroxiVooz agh, you’re right 9 hours without a proper meal is too much, we’ll need something to suck up the alcohol 😂 off I go to look for at the evening options 🫣

Our wedding was at 2. All in the same venue. We had champagne and canapés from 2.30- 4 while we took photos, then everyone upstairs for the meal which probably started at 4.30 - 120 guests so took a while to get everyone up there and seated. The venue had to close at 11pm or possibly midnight (central London), so I think we stated 'carriages at 11'.
I hated standing around at other weddings so we had it all timed out and kept the drink and food coming.
We had an open bar with beer and wine and I told the barmen that if anyone requested spirits that was fine, but not to have it on display!

Bloody hell - you cannot give people tea and cake instead of a meal!

Move the register office booking to earlier and eat at a proper meal at a sensible time or mid afternoon and have it around 5 or 6pm.

Bacon butties are a good evening option if budget is limited

Another tip is to do your family photos before the ceremony, and his side while you are getting ready, then the combined lot after.
Even with 'documentary' style give the photographer a list of who you want taken (a bridesmaid or groomsman can identify people). We had everyone photographed as they arrived.

Food at 3 and again at about 8.30. 3 is basically a late lunch, especially because the ceremony starts too early for anyone to eat lunch before, so you can’t expect your guests to not have anything at all for dinner. If you want to do only the 1 meal then the whole thing needs to be shifted much later- we had a 4pm church ceremony, 5.30-7pm drinks and canapés, 7pm dinner, dancing 9-12pm.

8k on food alone but you can't afford a bacon butty at night? Somethings wrong there then

Our wedding was at 1pm.
Main meal was at 3pm.
Evening food 7:30/8pm.

Yes sorry you do need evening food for a wedding that’s at 1. We went to a wedding at that time once and it was a very quick service, followed by a buffet. It dawned on us as the afternoon went on that there was no more food coming and we tried our best but had to leave the reception to go get some sneaky fish and chips and then come back. People were taking turns to disappear!

We went a bit mad at our wedding and made food a real priority (but spent less on other things - there’s no one right way to do stuff). We had church wedding at 1 lasting about an hour then family made canapés (blinis with cream cheese and smoked salmon but also party food like sausage rolls and stuff) that was available with a cup of tea at the back of the church whilst we did photos. Then guests travelled to the reception and were served high tea (so sandwiches and scones basically) with local cider (West Country wedding!) Then about 7 ish we had a hog roast with veggie options. Then our venue carved up the remaining pork and put it in baps so that anyone who wanted could have a sandwich at 10/11 to soak up the alcohol!

I know it sounds like a bit much but it was one of things that really mattered to us and we still get compliments about the food 10+ years on whenever the conversation turns to weddings.

For the evening food could they do something like sandwiches with any left overs from the bbq and put out bowls of chips with them or something?

@LordSugarTits We can probably just about afford it.. but having never planned a wedding before or had any real conversation with anyone who had I didn’t realise food was so expensive (or that we had such large families!😂) so we were caught slightly off guard, but it’s doable with some overtime (and selling my soul to the devil)

We also didn’t get to choose our caterers as the venue have in house caterers so prices weren’t an option - although we probably would have stuck with them as it all looks lovely!

And if you have an 8k food budget then there’s definitely a way to do it! Serve less at the main meal and/or choose cheaper options so there’s budget for the evening. There’s a limit to how much most people consume in one sitting anyway.