Planning Tips: The Reception Dinner

The reception is a huge portion of the wedding budget, mostly due to the cost of food and beverage. Choosing how to use your money is not as simple as couples imagined when they begin their planning process. The hardest decision may be choosing how to serve the meal to your guests. There are three styles that are most popular: Buffet Style, Seated Dinner and Dinner Stations. There are different reasons to choose each and here are some details and tips to help you decide.

Buffet

Although a buffet has the rep of being the most cost-effective option, that is actually misleading. A buffet gives the guests multiple options to choose from, but the caterer cannot account for the size of the portion each guest will take. Caterers typically make more to accommodate, resulting in a bigger price tag. 

When considering a buffet also remember that a line will be unavoidable unless you have a small guest count. As a planner, lines are my event peeves and aesthetically unappealing. One way to shorten the line is to have a duplicate buffet station with all the same options. You should also make the stations double-sided: guests can form lines on both sides of the buffet and two people can help themselves at once.

Seated Dinner

A seated dinner is an option that eliminates the lines and is more formal. The trade-off is that the guests get a limited choice for their meal. 

An option that is becoming more popular for seated dinners are to have them served family-style. Whether the whole meal or just the sides, it is a compromise to giving the guests some options for their meal and encourages interaction between the guests at their tables.

Dinner Stations

This is one of my favorite options. Dinner stations allow for you to get creative with your food choices, and provides your guests with multiple choices and usually the opportunity to customize their meal options. Have fun with your station choices: Chinese lo mien station, Sushi station, Macaroni station,  Satay/Kabob station and a few carving stations. Have 4-5 different food choices. Make sure to have 2 of each station to avoid lines.

This can be a bit costly, so you may consider doing 3 stations for cocktail hour.