Nixing plated/buffet dinner and doubling hors d'oeuvres+pizza?

I think this depends on the feel of your event. Super casual style? Pizza is fine. Expecting people to be dressed formally? Delivered pizza really isn’t appropriate. Also keep in mind that pizza gets cold really fast so if you just have it all dropped off at once and not catered by someone, the pizzas will likely be cold by the time your last guests sit down to eat.

I don't love it as an idea, but it's not my wedding. I guess the question really becomes are you prepared for the side-eye that your guests may give you after the wedding. Remember - no one is going to say to your face that they thought it was in bad taste, but that doesn't mean they won't talk about it among themselves . . .

Also, if you have a bunch of guests travelling, then you should probably go with some form of catering (barbeque and Italian tend to be less expensive options) versus pizza.

I can also see pizza as an issue for people with allergies (gluten, dairy, etc.)

I'd opt for a pasta station over pizza. Pizza is hard to eat in general, especially if your guests are all dressed up. We are doing heavy horderves that are meant to be hearty and filling with an active pasta station that will have short ribs to go on the side.

Keep in mind the heavy hors d’oeuvres can be pricy as well.
I agree with others that pizza is fine for casual, but not super appropriate for a more formal event.

Who is going to know that the pizza is delivered unless the ceremony takes place in the kitchen or at the back service door?


If you are serving pizza, that is still buffet because guests are sitting down to eat. As long as all dietary restrictions are met, there isn’t anything wrong with it. If someone goes home hungry between that and extra heavy appetizers, that’s on them. Especially if they turn up their noses at your hospitality because you are not a bad host. Plus people say they hate traditional wedding food so why not serve something everyone loves? You can’t go wrong with pizza and sides.
Many people don’t like the wood fired pizza and it’s more expensive. Just get a ton of pizzas from Costco food court or Pizza Hut or whatever you love, along with salads. Once the pizzas are out of the boxes and onto serving platters, no one will know or care where they were made.

To me pizza at a wedding would be more of a late night snack, not a dinner. Pizza can be messy and greasy and I personally wouldn't be happy being served that at a formal event. But if you're having something casual, I think it is fine.

Also, many formal events are heavy appetizers only. East Coast (NYC) does many of these and people dress to the nines and eat so much at cocktail hour that the plated meal goes untouched. Get price quotes before you decide.

View Quoted Comment This is essentially what I was going for--not just small appetizers, but actual small plates as the dinner and pizza as a late-night snack/supplement. It's fairly common here (Washington, D.C.), but the responses I'm seeing are not quite what I'd hoped. I wanted to avoid a buffet for hygienic reasons, so we might just have to forego a honeymoon and have a plated meal. (I was similarly under the impression that everyone hates wedding food too...) I'll get some quotes before we make a decision though.

Would the venue be OK with pizza being served? Sometimes there are liability issues. I wouldn't be offended with pizza at a casual event, but if it's more formal your guests may be confused. Heavy apps or small plates can be as expensive as a full plated meal though, so yeah, good idea to check the pricing.

Good luck!

As long as your wedding isn’t formal/black tie I think that’s perfectly acceptable.
Honestly my favorite part of weddings is cocktail hour because I love to try a bunch of different dishes so this sounds like a fun time to me!

I personally find few ideas tackier than pizza at a wedding. Unless you are in an area that is best known for a different kind of pizza, I agree with your thought that people might feel a bit jipped if that's what they paid and then traveled for. Anybody can get pizza anywhere at any time. I would keep looking around at caterers and also maybe talk amongst your family and friends to see if you have any good cooks or bakers in the mix. That could be their gift to you.

I personally wouldn't care if I were a guest being fed pizza, I know how expensive weddings can be 🤷🏾‍♀️

Would I be upset if I traveled across the country for a wedding that served heavy apps and pizza? Kind of… more disappointed than upset. In the situation you described, guests will be spending money to attend your wedding (aside from gifts). Feeding them a properly hosted meal is a show of gratitude and also sets the tone for your marriage. Delay your honeymoon or downsize if necessary.

Guests don't tend to remember much about weddings, but they do tend to remember the food. If they're hungry for most of the wedding because they've only had small appetizers to eat, and then you roll out cheap, cold pizza towards the end of the wedding... they'll remember that. I'd take a look at your budget and shift things around to cover a decent meal. I'd also check with your caterer if they can do something family style to split the difference between buffet and plated if your budget doesn't allow for plated.

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I agree with this. It also depends on where guests are traveling from/to.

I live in New Haven County home of the best pizza around, so I guess if I were traveling to Italy for the wedding I wouldn't care, vise versa if I didn't live around New Haven and got to go to the quote un quote pizza capital of the US I'd also be happy, but leaving New Haven county for Pizza isn't really something I wanna do.

As PP stated, people don't remember a lot from weddings but they will 100% remember the food.

Thank you all for your input! I realize and I completely forgot to mention that this isn't the wedding, this is just a reception later next year for the people that we could not invite to our wedding in December of this year. We were going to have a little vow exchange "ceremony" since our actual ceremony this year doesn't include vows, but only so our other guests could feel like they were invited to a wedding of sorts--even if it wasn't the real thing. It was going to just be a big dance party with about 10 minutes of vows/speeches, then food and dance the rest of the time.


It doesn't look like it'll work out though--$50k for a reception only in Washington, D.C is out of our budget, so it looks we'll just have to figure out a tactful way to say "we love you, sorry we couldn't invite you." Pizza was chosen specifically because we both love pizza and are known in our respective family/friend circles as being obsessed with it. Thanks again for the input!

I wouldn’t mind being served pizza at a wedding if I were a guest. My fiancé and I are honestly contemplating serving pizza at our reception as well. Our ceremony and reception is in our hometown which is a very small area and there are hardly any catering options nearby, the closest places are 1-2 hours away and at this point pizza is looking like our best bet.

View Quoted Comment Are there venues owned by the parks department? Those are normally the least expensive option.

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What do you mean "we love you, sorry we couldn't invite you"? Have you already invited these people? Or are you talking about people who might ask if they are invited?

I was going to do the same thing. As someone stated earlier yes apps can be pricey. We are having place make the apps, and I'm hiring about 4 people to butler the bigger hors devours.