Sit Down Dinner or Cocktail

What time is your reception? If you're having it during a meal time, you need to serve a meal, be it sit down or buffet. If the wedding and reception are later, you're fine with doing a cocktail reception.

It's totally up to you! If you decide to do a cocktail reception, be sure there are enough hors deoeuvres and stations to substitute a full meal. This often isn't cheaper just keep that in mind!

What time? We are doing both- extended cocktail hour and sit down dinner. Ceremony is at 330, cocktail hour until 6 (with apps), diner at 6pm

I've been to a wedding ceremony that didn't begin until 8pm and they had a cocktail reception immediately following. It fit in perfectly well to the evening! We had already eaten dinner, as we assumed a full meal wouldn't be served so late in the evening. But if your ceremony is closer to the 5/6 o'clock hour with reception to follow, then definitely a sit down dinner. People will come hungry during that time!

I personally prefer a cocktail reception with enough apps to substitute a meal. I love the ability to mingle with drinks and food rather than be stuck at a table that I didn't choose for myself. If you have enough seating and food you should be fine. Those horror stories you hear of guests swarming the servers and scarfing down food or sharing seating in 5 minute increments only happens if there's not enough food properly and timely served and not enough seating.

I'd chose a sit down dinner, every time. For the average 4+ hour reception around here, I wouldn't want to spend that amount of time mingling or standing.

I love cocktail style receptions, and you can absolutely do a 'meal' amount of food with stations and passed.

I would price this out before you make a decision; the basic rule of thumb is one station for every 50-75 guests, and if you have 'action' stations, like pasta to order, grilling/carving you definitely need two of each.

Some of it also depends on the format of your venue. If the stations will be all lined up together, you have a buffet, not cocktail style.

What most people don't get (and most caterers either) is that station/cocktail parties are a completely different format from a sit down or a buffet. The most successful ones look exactly like our cocktail hours here (and I hear from many, many guests that they can't even imagine eating dinner afterwards...). People come in, they are met with tables of drinks or butler style drinks, all the stations (usually 4 different ones including a cold station) are open, passed hors d'oeuvres circulating. There is no assigned seating, but seating for usually 80-110% of the guests at small and medium tables (six max), banquettes and casual seating.

To make this into an entire evening, I'd scatter the dances etc through the evening. When you arrive in the room, do the first dance, do speeches when you cut the cake and you naturally have all the attention in one place.

It's really more comprehensive than 'we'll just serve hors d'oeuvres' and you need a caterer who understands this and a venue that is suitable.

Agree with @Dreamer, sit down meal every time. I've been to a couple "cocktail reception" events and they sucked every single time.

Oh my gosh, I love action stations. We had a venue that offered flambé (omg I love fire!!! Of course it's all done behind a table by a professional) and a massive chocolate fondue fountain and if it weren't several thousand out of our budget I'd totally go for it. I sit down to eat a plain ole meal every day of my life - cocktail parties are exciting especially if they have some action that I don't usually get to see

We are doing a cocktail hour and then a sit down dinner I prefer a sit down

Depends on the time, your party style preference, and budget. My FH and I are going to do just apps and desserts because that's more our style of party, and we're doing it in the afternoon so it falls between meal times. If you go that route, be sure to plan for plenty of apps so that guests still have enough to eat. We will still have tables so that there is seating for guests (we don't expect everyone to stand for 5 hours!) but there are no seating assignments. Also, we are noting the reception style on our invitations to make it clear that we're not serving a sit-down meal. One of the cool things about doing this kind of reception is that we get to have so much more variety in our menu with all the apps our caterer offers. If you already have a caterer, maybe talk to them to find out about how they would approach each style and see which will work better for you.

Sit down, especially with that many people. I can't imaging 200 people milling about all night.

Especially with your guest list, I would say sit down. I feel like it makes sure I get to try everything and don't have to worry about one area being more crowded than another. It still allows me to get up and mingle with others but still have a "home base" where I can leave my things and know when I come back that I didn't miss any food.