Reception. With passed around food

Do you mean family style dinner or appetizers?

I'm not sure how you mean this. Like passed hor d'oeuvres where someone comes by with a tray and you pick off a bite two?
That's totally doable. Have a late wedding, at about 8, start the reception at 8:30 or 9 and have a cocktail party reception. Serve drinks, hor d'oeuvres and cake. Boom.

Totally doable! And sounds awesome. Just keep in mind it might end up costing you more, because you still want to provide enough food, you may end up paying per appetizer. Also think about stations where people can get things.

And even if you're not having a seated dinner you want to have seating for everyone.

If your reception occurs over the hours when people would normally eat a meal, you can certainly do heavy apps, but you need to ensure that there is enough food to constitute a full meal.

You will also find that this is more expensive than a plated meal or a buffet because apps are labor intensive.

View Quoted Comment

Exactly this!

I actually really like dinner and I think that *if* you’re not going to have enough food to constitute a full meal and you’re planning on having a long party that spans meal times it could be less than ideal. You know your crowd best, but with mine I wouldn’t be able to just not serve dinner in some form during the wedding. But that’s me, not you!

You could do it and it could totally work, but it could also be a disaster if poorly executed. I’d hate to be a guest and be walking all over trying to find someone who’s passing around food because there aren’t enough staff. And ultimately it kinda sounds logically weird because what if someone wants to stop and sit down and eat some food? Do they just have to wander around and eat food one appetizer at a time?

I think if you don’t want to have a formal dinner time you could have buffet food that is kept hot and just have people make their plate and eat whenever. I’m a little wary of doing passed food exclusively.