When you go to a formal event like a wedding do you prefer to be served or a buffet?

Personally I prefer buffet because I can pick exactly what I want and in what quantities I desire. The downside is the line!!

It depends. Not every wedding is formal. I’d rather the reception venue and the food service match the couple’s level of formality.

Buffet, plz.
Last wedding I was at did a buffet. Each course had a different table, and the table you were sitting at would be called up by number to go to the course’s in order table when it was time.
It was still a sit down meal, the lines weren’t too bad and you didn’t have to worry about not liking or not being able to eat something they just bring you.

The last wedding I went to had a combinationn of both. The food was served at the table, but it was served on a giant revolving centerpiece, and we could simply take from the different dishes as we saw fit.

@YARNLADY I’m imagining a giant medieval table with a lazy susan in the middle.

I like the buffet. I’ve been to both, but I think that the buffets allow people with different dietary concerns can find something to eat that they like as well as allowing people to go back for more if they didn’t manage to eat earlier in the day like the family member that was running around chasing small children all morning so their parents and grandparents could do what they needed to… who barely had time to dress, much less eat.

What I really like is when there is a menu on the table that outlines what’s available on the buffet before people go and eat as well as cards that tell what something is next to the dishes. I know a lot of people with food allergies that are better able to plan if they know what’s going on before they get there and when they hit the food.

@YARNLADY – Ooooo, I like that idea.

A few years ago when I was planning my wedding with my ex-fiancé (long story for another day!), I thought about having a giant rotating platter in the centre of the table containing ingredients to make-your-own fajitas. Messy, fun and tasty tasty goodness :D

Buffet. I am super picky. I don’t eat onions or mushrooms. I just get a bunch of rolls and meat and cheese. I make sandwiches. I hate getting served tons of stuff I will not eat.

@johnpowell – Blawww, onions. I with you on that one!

@Rachienz @johnpowell I grew up biting into onions like they were apples.

Hate buffet, anyway.

@rangerr – RAW??? * winces *

My wedding is going to be astronaut themed, and everything will be made out of paper mache. The cups and plates will be paper, though. But you have to eat from tubes and freeze-dry packets.

@Rachienz Yup. We grew them on the farm, so we developed a taste for them as kids.

@holden I want to be there. Kthnx.

@rangerr ok, but you have to dress appropriately. So, as an alien lifeform or space pirate.

@YARNLADY I have never heard of a “family style” wedding.

being served is nice and all but if the food on the buffet is good then i’ll gladly take that. i’m a big eater and usually one plate full isnt quite enough. but if its shitty buffet food then NO thank you. especially if its cold?! gag

@holden Space zombie? :D

Cocktail hour buffet style or passed hors d’oeuvres is fine, but once I am sitting at the table I don’t want to get up for food.

@Rachienz Generally I would not want messy at a wedding, but one of my girlfriends told everyone to bring casual clothes to change into after the ceremony (I mean literally a lot of us were in shorts) her reception was at her parents house, they set up a big tent and served bbq. It was a lot of fun.

Mostly it has to do with how I am dressed. If I have on a semi formal or formal dress, possibly some sort of girdle, and high heels, I don’t want to have to move back from the table, stand up, get my food, come back to the table, pull my chair back in, it’s a pain. Plus, I hate piling food on my plate, so I usually want to go back for seconds. If it is a three course meal brought to the table it makes things less complicated, best if there is a choice of entrees.

Generally buffet is more expensive for the host anyway, even though the sit-down dinner seems more formal.

Buffets are nasty and a waste of money (in my case). I can barely finish one plate of food at a time, let alone 3 or 4. I’ll take the service.

@JLeslie The reception was held at a Chinese Restaurant, since the bride’s family are Chinese, and that is the standard way to serve large groups there. We had 8 or 10 tables, and the servers passed around among the tables, taking away and adding different dishes to the Lazy Susan.

I’m with @YARNLADY.

We had “family style” at my wedding. Platters of vegetables, pasta, and lamb were brought to each table and replaced as needed. The only item that was served was the soup and the dessert table was buffet.

So it was a combo of all three styles.

Served as long as there are enough waiters. Otherwise buffet.

I prefer being served.

I like a buffet – there is usually more variety in the food and you can take what you like. But I understand the argument in favor of being served in terms of a more formal atmosphere. My wedding was very small and we had a family style “wedding breakfast” (brunch really) that we had cooked ourselves.

@YARNLADY I like it.

For a fancy wedding, I like a good hot hors d’oeuvres buffet with passed cold canapes. Depending on the size of the wedding, served food is generally cold by the time it gets to you, and generally tastes like institutional food, even at the nicest hotel or venue. In order to get the food out, it’s plated at least an hour before it’s served and kept hot under a cover. Eww. It’s fancier hospital food.

I like to have the chance to graze, move about and mingle with people. The only thing I wouldn’t mind having served is a cold meal, like a summer brunch.

i hate Buffets. You usually end up eating way more calories, the food gets sticky and stale, and everyone handles the food. Yuck.

I like being served. There’s no rush at the buffet table. Everyone gets what is being served. But, of course, that’s a lot more expensive.

I like being served, but the downside is your meal is usually cold when you get it. So my preference for that reason and for variety is a buffet. Some people ( like my SO)seem to think that buffet means making a pig of yourself, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can eat a variety of foods, but in small enough portions that you aren’t over eating.

My SO and I went to a huge smorgasborg in Pennsylvania, and he ate himself sick. He took 5 plates of food! He asked me why I wasn’t full or sick. I told him that it was about the variety, not the portions for me. I sampled a little bit of the things that interested me, and only had one plate. I also ate much slower than he did, so I know when I had enough. He, on the other hand, shovelled as much as he could as quickly as he could into his mouth. No wonder he got sick! By the time his stomach told him it was full, it was too late! It is very possible to eat at a buffet and remain dainty!!

I wonder why so many people think you have to eat a lot when you are at a buffet? Just because you are serving yourself doesn’t mean you have to overeat!
For crying out loud, it’s a buffet, not a hog trough, lol!!

I don’t care as long as the food is good, and there are non-meat options. I prefer fish or a veggie entre. Seems like a lot of weddings I go to have chicken and beef. Bleck.

I chose buffet style for my upcoming wedding. The cost was significantly cheaper than the sit down dinners and this way the guests can choose what they want on their plates. The only downfall is having to wait for each table to be called up.

We had a buffet because our wedding theme was “cheap.” It was in my brother-in-law’s backyard, and my sister-in-law did the cooking as our gift. The food was in a wide variety of scrounged up and loaned crock pots in her kitchen; drinks in ice in a kiddie pool. People ate outside in whatever they saw fit to wear, from a suit to a sarong. People said they had fun.

I think waiter service would have been weird at our wedding, even if we’d wanted to pay for it – or round up volunteers to act as waiters. Like @augustlan said, it should match – but I’m not a big fan of formal stuffy weddings anyway.

Plated (sit-down). I’m a banquet server and having worked many a buffet, I’m just totally grossed out by them. Not only does it strike me as unhygienic, the quality of the food is not as good, in my opinion. If you have something that goes out on the buffet line perfectly cooked, it ends up getting steamed more and overcooked. Anyway, I will go out of my way to avoid buffets these days.

@laureth My wedding theme isn’t “cheap” and we still chose buffet style. It’s actually quite formal. The venue is very pricey, even for a buffet style dinner. Most of my family voted for it anyway.
@MissAnthrope Why exactly is it unhygienic?

I agree with @augustlan, the meal and type of service should reflect the formality of the event and the couple´s wishes. Personally I preffer dinner served at the table with the appropriate cutlery and place serttings, but that´s just me.

@daloon Generally the buffet is more expensive; more food is necessary. The same amount of wait staff is there for both types of parties from what I understand.

@ubersiren If the wedding is at a major hotel or catering facility they almost always have some veg entrees for those who can’t eat meat even if it is not on the menu.

I’ve worked about a million weddings.. let me tell you how glad I am that wedding season is over!! At the last country club I worked, the weddings were great. 95% of the guests were happy and having a good time and I felt honored to help the couple have the best “big day” possible. My current job blows on so many levels and weddings there are kind of a pain in the ass. Most of the guests at any function there just seem unbelievably bitchy and unhappy, so they’re really not fun to work, plus generally they’re very involved in terms of set up and tear down.

@ItalianPrincess1217 – I find it unhygienic because of the number of people handling the serving utensils, breathing on the food, that sort of thing. Not to mention having food sitting out on a buffet can breed bacteria growth if the food isn’t adequately heated. This last one is less of an issue at banquet buffets vs. restaurant buffets, as the food goes pretty quickly at the former and in my experience, as long as the chaffing (sp?) dishes are preheated and the sternos don’t burn out, the food should stay plenty hot.

@JLeslie – At the places I’ve worked, I feel like it’s generally less expensive to do a buffet over plated meals. Or at least that’s what I remember from looking over event sheets (they always break it down to cost per head), I’ll have to pay attention in my upcoming functions to make sure. Of course, what you choose to eat at the wedding also causes the price to vary, buffet or not. Plating meals is time-consuming for the kitchen and also more labor-intensive to serve, whereas buffets are just giant pans made all at once, so the kitchen just makes several of each and then they’re done.

Also, it’s really best to notify the bride/groom ahead of time that you’re vegetarian, because unless they tell the facility prior to the wedding, the kitchen most likely will not prepare a vegetarian entree option.

@JLeslie I can’t imagine how a buffet would be more expensive than wait service. I can’t imagine how you’d need more staff for a buffet. That just doesn’t pass the smell test. I know we had a buffet at our wedding because service would have cost a lot more. We surely would have had service if it cost less than buffet. No, that just doesn’t make any sense to me. Do you have a source?

@daloon A lot of it has to do with what’s served. The last big sit-down dinner I went to had an entree of vegetarian lasagna. Had they served something else on the buffet, like meat, the buffet would have been more expensive.

If you have three meats, multiple sides, and so on, the buffet is going to be more expensive than the one or two options that are offered at a sit down dinner. Yes, plating and service is more labor intensive, but more exact amounts are prepared as well as less options… so it works out to less money.

@daloon For me wedding and when I planned a 400 person Holiday party for a place I worked at sit down served dinners were less expensive.

It was less expensive because people chose their entree before the party. With a buffet you have to have at minimum two entrees or it will seem like you are skimping. Buffet you might want more side choices etc. It all adds up. Also, on a buffet you have to be sure not to run out. On a served plate you get what you get.

@JLeslie I did a lot of shopping around before choosing the venue for my wedding and all the menu options were cheaper for buffet style. I just assumed it was because they don’t need as much wait staff. It was usually around $10 cheaper per head when you opt for buffet style.

@ItalianPrincess1217 ; that has been my experience as well.

I guess it matters where and what you are ordering. I looked on-line a little and many places do charge a couple of dollars more for sit-down as some of you have said, but it is still cheaper if you want a choice of entrees from what I can tell for sit down if you can give a quantity to the caterer ahead of time.