Dinner is Served...What's Your Style?

Ok so let us be honest here..there is a reason why guests LOVE weddings, and although we would like to think it is ONLY because they simply want to support your holy matrimony, there are some three other benefits that come to mind: (1) Free Food, (2) Free Drinks, and (3) Dancing! And who doesn't love free stuff, especially when it comes to a scrumptious meal.

Since food is a must at any wedding affair, your food presentation and selection is always scrutinized. To start off a good time, your guests are looking to fill up on a yummy selection of culinary perfection! 

Buffet

Hillary Mayberry

This "all-you-can-eat" style is the most popular choice for good reason! A buffet style course is generally more cost effective that a seated dinner and allow your guests to self-serve. Furthermore, buffets require limited coordination by both yourself and the event staff because food is typically served in masses. Guests have free range to choose what they like, don't like, and how much of each item then want. Wedding buffets often include a minimal of a bread, salad, a vegetable, two starch choices, and two entree choices. The other benefit to serving a buffet style is that you can easily add selections, such as a carving station or a hors d'œuvre display to any serving line. Insider tip: when serving a buffet style, you should typically give your caterer a final count of guests that is 10% less than the number of RSVPs you received; the reason, a quality caterer always makes surplus food, and your guests will never eat as much as you expect them to in a social setting.

Seated Dinner

Jose Villa Photography

A seated dinner is the most traditional serving option. These days, a seated dinner is often used at large ballroom reception with room enough to seat every guest. Think of a seated dinner as a meal at a fine dining restaurant, your guests will be served and waited on by event staff during the entire meal. The four courses include: an appetizer, soup/salad, main meal, and dessert. Although a plated dinner may be very impressive to your guests, be aware that this style requires a lot more coordination on your behalf. Each guest will need to choose his or her meal selection prior to the wedding (usually this is done by placing a meal choice on the response card in your invitation suite). Every guest must have an assigned seat, and their meal choice must be in coordination with their seat. As you can tell, this style, although extremely high-class and elegant, requires a lot on your part - so the insider tip on this one would be to definitely hire a wedding coordinator to take care of this if you choose a seated affair.

J. Garner Photography

Cocktail 

A cocktail style reception has become very trendy recently. This idea behind the cocktail style seat up is to encourage guests to continually be up and mingling. The food is served as heavy hors d'oeuvres, finger foods, and small plated items. This is the least expensive option because you are providing only small plated items, and since it encourages people to be up and about, less seating is needed. This style is perfect for mid-day or late night weddings that are not during a usual "meal" time. Cocktail style receptions are typically set up with one or two large hors d'œuvre displays accompanied by passed finger foods by your event staff. Fun foods to pass around are mini hamburger sliders, small crab cakes, chicken satay, and prosciutto wrapped scallops.