Plated dinners or buffet

It all depends. What are the packages being offered? Can you upgrade? How many people do you have? How formal is your wedding? Talk to the caterer or venue and see if they'll work with you on customizing your menu.

I'm doing buffet because I know my guests especially my side of the family will complain if they don't the chance to pig out.

I'm having prime rib, pasta, Waldorf salad, something chicken, two vegetarian entrees (I have a couple of guests who are vegetarians), baby back ribs and salmon. Maybe the brisket too.

I know from the start, that the people in my guest listwill never cease to complain if I do plated.

My cousins wedding wasn't plated but the entrees were served straight to the table and removed at a certain time. Oh boy, people complained years after her wedding!

So know your guests then you can decide.

We're doing plated, but we're having table-side ordering, so people can make up their minds on the day what they feel like eating. This was perfect for us, since I like the formality of plated meals but I like the spontaneous nature of buffets; I hate having to decide what I'll feel like eating 8 weeks into the future.

I hate buffets, they gross me out a little when I think about the food being open to the public for sneezing and touching and things (I work in health care and see how gross people really are - yuck!).

For us, it wasn't a question - definitely played. But we have chicken, beef, scallops, vegetarian, and vegan options. As well as tons of appetizers, and we're adding late night snack.

I'm all in on plated, but if we have too many people RSVP we'll have to switch to buffet just for timing reasons (and the venue said buffet is all they ever do but I'm a rebel). With that said, we are doing vegetarian option, kids plate or chicken plate on our RSVP. The presentation of the food was beautiful at the tastingso I'm praying we are plated

Plated for us because we wanted a bit more formal and we get 3 options for each course.

We are doing plated with a choice of prime rib. .chicken. .or veggie lasagna

Plated

Im doing plated...the venue suggested it because its a bit more intimate and you wont have lines of people constantly going up to the buffet and i thought it was a great idea

I'm doing a buffet. I felt it offered my guest more options and less chance of food being served cold. I love the fact that we were able to add on an Asian noodle station!

Maybe it's regional....most of the weddings I shoot are buffet, and it usually works well. The key is being properly staffed and if the venue is set up for it.

Plated: 2 duet/double entrees, plus 1 vegetarian. After the cocktail hour food spread and thousands of passed hors d'oeuvres, there were 4 plated courses plus a dessert buffet. French cart service: i.e. hot soup ladled out tableside from tureens, cold carts used for the salad and dessert service. 2 servers assigned to 2 tables, for the night meant the entire ballroom was served, in less than 10 minutes.

I've only attended one buffet wedding, in our area (certainly not the norm), and the food was horrible. Ditto with the 2 buffet weddings out of our area. 2 meats, 2 sides, roll, and bowl of salad mix, followed by a slice of cake. Servers gave you one serving spoon of food. My vegetarian sister asked for a bigger helping of the non-meat items and she was told no. Seconds weren't available unless there was food left in the pan and you got up there quick enough.

I don't know where people host wedding buffets that are like all you can eat restaurants, with dozens of items and the chance to eat 3 servings of each item?

What about stations? Like buffet, but it's not one long table with the food on it (and one long line). Allows guests to move around the room and grab whatever strikes their fancy.

We almost always see plated entrees here, with orders taken tableside. The cocktail hours always have stations and passed hors, so to do a buffet for dinner would mean that the guests end up standing in line for a good portion of the night. I really only see buffet for very small groups, and then usually the entire cocktail hour has consisted of passed hors.

Stations have to be managed well or they turn into an awkwardly placed buffet.

Ours was plated, with orders taken tableside. Actually all of our food was exactly how @Celia described it (and pretty typical for a formal wedding in the NYC area). People were raving about the food, we have heard nothing but good things

I'm leaning more towards plated chicken or steak dish! I think ha

Honestly, as long as the food is good I don't care whether its plated or on a buffet!! haha

We did plated because that was the only option our venue offered. We gave guests a choice of 3 dishes (steak, chicken with seafood, or vegetarian).

Plated is more formal, but buffet can offer additional options, especially for folks that may be picky eaters or have dietary restrictions.

-sigh- yep I need to go to their tasting then decide