Late Wedding, No food?

I am hink everyone has to work with their budgets. If you are getting married near enough to home that it doesn't involve hours of travel for your guests then feeding people a smaller meal once is fine. They can have lunch before they leave home. What I would say is not everyone likes sweet things and maybe include some savoury and sandwiches. Bit like a high tea? I would also specify on their invitations weddingday x time followed by high tea/cold buffet type. That way they know to have a main meal before the wedding and noone goes hungry. ?

Hi

I don't know... how late were you planning on having them stay until? Even if I had a big lunch, I'd expect more than nibbles for my evening meal.

Then again, it depends what you count as nibbles. I think you'd get away with a hot buffet. Our friends had a Pizza Buffet and that went down a storm!

But yeah, if you're expecting people to stay late, they'll need some substance to their food. Otherwise they'll sneak off and go get some dinner and you don't want that

Xxx

I dont eat in the morning, never have and probably never will as it feels horrible to be bloated and heavy with food straight away and plus its useless calories (eating for the sake of eating) when I dont need or want it.

I normally eat at 5pm-7pm, I might snack at between 1-3 but I wouldnt of eaten any meal by your reception and would be hungry and gumpy, my finacee although he eats throughout the day at work (sandwhiches and stuff) has his 'main' meal between 8-9 too

plus our children eat at breakfast at 8, dinner at 12, snack at 3, tea at 5 and supper at 7.30... they are very set in this routine (god only knows why as they completely created it themselves) and would require feeding

even full day weddings (say from 11 till midnight = 15 hours) feed guests TWICE (traditionally the breakfast and the buffet) so if you break it down into hours (counting an hour before ceremony for travel and until midnight) you are expecting your guest to go 10 hours without food - you may be able to cut the breakfast but I would still feed everyone the same as you would feed evening guests (this can be cheeper such as: burgers, baps, buffets, chip cones etc... but I dont think sweets alone would be enough)

I would say that some substance should be provided, as your guests will be there at dinner time- they can have lunch, but people will be hungry around 6-7pm.

That said, I do believe in sticking to your budget.

Could you maybe cut out half of the sweet treats you were going to provide, and replace them with savory? If you are allowed to bring your own food into the venue, why not look at making/buying a few sandwich platters- get some sausages rolls or some crisps.

Then, if you let people know that it's a light buffet after the wedding, they can make their own food arrangements- and perhaps have a large lunch.

Most weddings are on the budget.

Forgo the sweets and cake table, and give your guests food. Even if they had lunch, most people eat dinner between 6-7pm - so people will get hungry. If you only give them sweet food, that'll give them a sugar rush and crash. It's more sustainable to guests good sustenance.

I think it's fine as long as you make it clear that it will be 'light refreshment' or similar, that way people know to have a lunch before they arrive. I always take ages to get ready for a wedding so would never normally stop to have something to eat. I think you would be better off adding some more savoury options to the sweet & cake buffet.

We are getting married at 3, then doing scones at 4.30/5ish and hot food at 7 :-)

I think you need to review guest numbers and agree on how many guests you can afford to feed. If that's 30, then invite 30 people.

You can certainly do without a sit down meal. I photographed a wedding recently where they had on-site pizza oven hire which worked great. You do need to feed them if they are staying for more than a few hours.

I think the only way to avoid feeding them is to say it's an afternoon only event, eg 3.30 ceremony and then everyone leaves by 7pm.

A sweet buffet is probably best avoided if you're on a tight budget. Invest the money into "proper food", even if that is platters of sandwiches from Sainsburys (which are surprisingly tasty!)

People will be really hungry by the evening if you don't provide them with food! No need for wedding breakfast (but make it clear, so they have lunch before the ceremony!), but I think they'll definitely need something in the evening (unless you're planning to finish the reception by 6ish!). My ceremony is as 2:30pm and I'm providing two meals (afternoon tea, and evening BBQ), and I'm still wondering whether to arrange some sort of snacks in the late evening!

As budget is the issue, if your venue allows it I think sandwiches from sainsburys or similar (as someone suggested above), maybe cut into triangles to make more of them, with crisps in bowls and that sort of stuff, would be okay. If you choose this picnic sort of stuff, you could even get red and white chequered cloths from the pound shop and call it a picnic!

Alternativrly. If your venue allows it, what about doing a 'pot luck', where you provide some basic staple food like sandwiches, but then each guest is invited to bring a dish with them? That could be fun, and a good way of meeting budget. You could even make it into a competition, with a prize for the best dish!

A good rule of thumb is that if your guests will there during meal time, you need to feed them. Unless your event will be ending around 7:00. If your venue allows it, look for nontraditional caterers. Food trucks or restaurants that offer catering services can provide delicious food at a lower price than a dedicated catering company.

Straight answer no.

Your guests will be able to have lunch beforehand but to not have any substance and only sweet table etc will leave people hungry and also if there is a bar likely to get a bit tipsy too quickly!

That doesn't mean providing food has to cost £40+ p/p a lot of it will depend on your venue rules. We did Paella for £12 p/p which everyone loved and then evening food for £4 p/p based on cheese boards and costco dips and snacks.

As said you can get some great platters, providing food doesn't have to be a sit down 3 course affair! One of the best weddings we attended was their favourite curry house - cost £11 p/p and there was loads of it!

We're having an evening finger buffet which we're having catered by a local sandwich shop and their prices started at around £4.50 ahead which works pit cheaper than the supermarket platters. You could get a company to supply sandwiches and then add crisps, dips etc yourself.

Lexi

If I was being expected to get by on nibbles, cake and sweets from 3pm until bedtime, I'm afraid I would be taking a cab yo the nearest chippy/Chinese/Indian to be fed. I understand being on a small budget and cutting your cloth accordingly, but I think food is something you can't scrimp on to the extent you're proposing. It doesn't have to be haut cuisine - a hot buffet will suffice, I think we paid about £7 a head for bacon, sausages, chips and baps, which went down well. If you can't afford to feed the number of people you're inviting, then maybe you need to take a look at the size of your guest list.

I guess it depends!

I'd be totally ok with that if I were a guest and there was enough to drink, haha. But I guess it depends. If you're looking for a small, cozy, family-and-close-friends-only kind of wedding then sure. If you want to invite your boss and some people your SO might want to impress... that's probably a different story.

Hi.

I understand that sticking to a budget is extremely important and i agree with what was previously suggested. Invite however many people you can afford to feed because your guests will get hungry at some point, especially if they have had to travel a while to get to you.

We are on a tight budget so we are foregoing an evening do but can afford to provide a meal for 28 guests that will finish up by 5pm. Work within your means and as long as you have a mixture of sweet and savoury snacks for people to nibble on then I'm sure they will be satisfied. ?

Well it depends what you mean by nibbles. Sweets aren't going to feed people. Unless you want guests to start leaving and nipping to the nearest McDonald's or ordering pizzas.

Don't let your wedding be remembered as the one where everyone was hungry.

Talking as someone who has the odd "hangry" episode I'm not sure this would work... You can find cheap food options (hog roasts can work out quite well) that will be a bit more substantial than cake. I find my blood sugar crashes quite quickly after cake/sweets and this is worsened by booze ? Also if your guests like a drink you might not want them to all be drinking on an empty stomach

If you really want to see how much guests hate not being fed, there's a whole thread about it on another well known site. But I expect the op isn't coming back.

Sorry, I would need feeding with something a little more substantial than cake. It's a long time to go without anything to eat and you don't want people to remember your wedding as the one with no food and everyone either getting pished too quickly or being hangry!

I appreciate everyone has a budget but cutting food isn't really the way to go about it.

Link? Or more clues so that I can go nose at other people having a rant ?