HI--My daughter's wedding is at 7 p.m., and she has orders for the buffet to begin at 8:30 whether or not the bridal party has arrived from having post-wedding photos.
First of all, as soon as guests arrive at the reception site after the wedding, which could be as soon as 7:30-7:40 p.m. since she wants a short ceremony and the reception site is only a couple of miles from the church, an antipasto station will be open as well as a fruit station. Servers will offer appetizers as they circulate among the arriving guests. My daughter has ordered ony one appetizer per guest, (200 guests).
The buffet to follow consists of two meat entrees and two pasta side dishes, grilled vegetables, and rolls.
Cake/dessert to follow at 9:30 p.m. Does this to you qualify as a "light buffet", and do you think this is serving too much food too late at night? Thank you for any advice or response!
There are a couple of things here that should be considered. First is the buffet starting before the arrival of the Bride and Groom. This is highly unusual and your guests would most likely prefer to wait for the Bride and Groom's welcome to begin. 8:30 may well turn out to be the time to start the buffet but this is something that needs to be coordinated with the photographer. Many times they will do pre-ceremony shots and family groupings prior to the ceremony to save time afterwards. This allows them the time to do the formals with all together after the ceremony and then get them to the reception site within approximately 45 minutes in time to begin the buffet.
Secondly if there are two stations and passed hors d' oeuvres that sounds sufficient and would most definitely be more than one piece per person. If dinner is then being served within the hour, that should be fine. Nancy Tucker President of Weddings Beautiful US http://www.weddingsbeautiful.com
Light buffet dinner for 8:30 p.m.?
