Food Truck Planning

You will need to talk to all of the food trucks and get them to give you clear information on how many people they can serve in what amount of time. Ask them if they have catered large events before and what measures they take to reduce line waiting time. If they are preparing all food to order, your 250 guests will be waiting hours to eat and probably won't get enough food.

I have not personally done this but I anticipate it being very logistically challenging for such a large group. If the entire crowd decided amongst the three trucks evenly that’s 80+ people in line for one truck at a time. It’s also very likely that one truck will be the most popular, and you could end up having 200 people all waiting for the same truck at the same time. Food trucks are great for a casual late night snack where people can leisurely grab something but for an actual dinner this will take a ton of time for some people to get their meal.

For that number of people, I would recommend having at least 5 food trucks (one food truck per 50 guests) so that you don't end up with people in long lines waiting hours for their food.

You’ll definitely need to address this with each of the trucks. Make sure they’ve done large events and that they have a plan in place for serving that many people. I’ve never done a wedding or an event with that many people, but I was once in charge of hiring a food truck for a work event and though the truck I hired had done events before, it still took about an hour to serve the 50 employees in the office. I can’t imagine how long 200+ people would take.

I've been to numerous food truck events that were both small and large and they tend to be really slow at serving food so you'll will end up having guests first getting their food when others are already done. So while they are fun and unique I wouldn't recommend having a good truck for a wedding unless you were going to have a very small guest list.

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Our plan is not to have a formal sit down dinner and rather a 2 hour time slot to grab dinner. Lots of things I have seen online is 1 food truck/75 people so we are stretching it a bit because a lot of the trucks we have inquired with have a 75-125 person minimum. All the trucks we have inquired with have wedding experience in serving that large of a group.

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So, with your plan, many of your guests (anyone who doesn't get in line first at those two trucks) will be waiting a very long time to eat. I would rethink and prioritize feeding everyone an adequate amount of food in a shorter amount of time.

Will it be made to order food truck or more so they have the food cooked already and ready to serve, like buffet style?

You’ll see lots of advice on the “most important things to guests” type lists, and they always include feeding people enough and at an appropriate time. I think you’ll find very few guests who will be happy with a VERY long cocktail hr and getting their food at the 1hr45min mark. Maybe you can start serving really early, like 4:30/5, so that many guests won’t be ready to eat yet? As a guest, the ‘cool’ factor of a food truck is very much outweighed by the frustration of spending much of the wedding hungry/ in line (or leaving early to get my own dinner!).

Your group is way too big for a food truck. Pretend that you have a "short" line of 50 people. If the food truck is insanely fast, that will be one minute per person. That's 50 minutes standing in line for the person at the back. Most people wear dressy clothes, and heels. I probably just wouldn't eat or wait to the very end to see if the line ups lighten. Also the people in line, will they be served drinks while in line? How will they socialize with other guests?

I think this would be logistically difficult to plan around, as some people would be eating, some waiting in line, some waiting to get in line, and some completely finished. As a guest, this would not be ideal, no matter how delicious the food might be.

We had a pizza food truck for our guestlist of 80 and around 10 vendors (photographers, videograhers, DOC etc)
The truck had a brick oven pizza built in, so they kept making the pizzas and once they were done, they would put the whole pies on a table and had someone serve each guests.
We had 5 types of pizza and a salad.
The DJ released the tables one by one, and the guests never had to wait for the food to be ready, they kept making new pizzas and it flowed really well! I think if you're releasing everyone at once, it would be difficult because naturally, one truck would be favored more than the other, but if you release them one table a a time, it's completely doable!

I love food trucks. But they’re not quick serve situations. There is always a line. I echo what others have said. This sounds like a logistical nightmare and people will be waiting a long time for food. I do think foods that can be prepared in bulk (pizza) are better than things that did individual prep for each guest (IE tacos or sandwiches). Good luck I hope it works out because the idea is fun!

I think you have too many guests for food truck service, and definitely not enough food trucks if you decide to go this route anyway.