Wedding Dinner: Plated Vs. Non-plated
When we were planning our wedding together the top things on our list of important things in a wedding venue was the style of the venue and the food we would have served. We believe that food brings people together in a way that nothing else does. More bonding and relationships are built while eating than any other time.
Think about it when you went on your first date with your significant other there is a good chance that you went somewhere to eat. The restaurant provided a safe space and location for you both to get to know each other. From that one moment getting to know each other on the first date has led to this point where you are now getting married or thinking about getting married.
When you have all of your friends and family come together on your wedding day you are going to want to make sure the food is something delicious and makes your guests happy. There is a certain magic to a good day filled with great food. You are paying good money for the food for your guests, so whether you get a buffet style service or you have a plated service make sure the food is good. The differences between plated dinner vs. buffet style is the style, the cost, and the effect on the timeline.
Both a plated dinner and buffet style dinner have different styles to which they fit. A plated dinner will be more formal and will best fit a black-tie wedding or other formal style. A buffet style dinner is more casual which fits a different style. The decision to choose between having a plated dinner service vs. a buffet style dinner for your wedding is based on the style of your wedding. Are you aiming for a more formal feel to your wedding or are you aiming for a casual style wedding? Each type of wedding has its place; however, if you are having a more black-tie type of wedding it wouldn’t fit the style to have a buffet service dinner. A plated service fits almost all wedding types, but there might be occasions when it fits better to have a buffet style as it fits the theme.
The other reason to choose between plated and buffet style is cost. A buffet style will cost less because there requires less staff to run the buffet than if you needed servers present to pass out all of the food. A plated service will be a little costlier because of the coordination needed to organize all of the servers as well.
Another consideration you must make to determine if you want a plated service or a buffet is your timeline. Ultimately, your timeline has a big effect on many parts of your decision making for your wedding. If your timeline is packed pretty tight than you are going to want a plated service because you can have the speeches, dances, or any other nuptials occurring at the same time as the servers are delivering food to your guests.
Your dinner style must match your wedding style for more formal weddings that are fancier such as a ballroom wedding at the Richard Nixon Library would fall into the formal style. The other style is more of a casual more intimate wedding day. A wedding style that is meant to be more casual is better fit for a buffet style wedding.
