At the time, everyone told us that it wouldn’t be an issue to have formal full place settings and a seating chart even though we’re going with the station format, but now the caterer is saying that it won’t work to have full place settings. Instead they want to serve the plated appetizer salad on a full sized dinner plate instead of a salad plate (to fit on the charger), but then have people get smaller salad plates at each station as they get food.
Apparently it’s “too confusing” for guests to carry their dinner plate from the table to the stations to get food, but not a problem for guests to have to juggle 3 little plates from each station then only have one charger to set them on back at the table???
Either way, guests are going to have to carry plates of food at some point, servers will be there to clear off dirty plates from the tables, and even if we insist on a salad plate for the salad, set on top of a full size dinner plate that guests can take to get their first course from any/all stations, we’re still going to have extra smaller plates at the stations either way for guests to use when they get seconds.
Please help!!! I deeply regret going with this station crap and don’t want it to ruin our black tie formal wedding
how can we salvage the situation to have a formal place settings without “confusing” our guests or creating any etiquette issues? We really want the dinner to have that very formal plated dinner look and feel, but with more variety in food options where guests can get exactly what they want. But at this point it just seems like a logistical nightmare or etiquette faux pas no matter what we do.
(oh and the wedding is in 3 weeks)
