BRIDES WHO GOT BUFFET ---NO TAKING EXTRA FOOD HOME

By law, if commercial food sits out for more than 2 hours it has to be thrown away. I had an early afternoon wedding and they packed the food up by 2 hours and refrigerated it so we were able to take it home.

Wait, It's typical at our venue that a take out is specifically set aside for the bride and groom. Is this unusual?

The restaurant sent all of our leftovers home from the shower.

My cousin did a buffet and the venue donates the leftover food to a local homeless shelter the next morning. Such a waste if it just gets thrown away!

Our venue is boxing uo our food and sending it home by our groomen and bridesmaids....

Very interesting! I will remember this when talking to caterers!

The food at a restaurant was prepared for just you, handled by just you, and generally was not sitting on your table for hours. The food at a buffet has been scooped by a bunch of people, has been in chafing dishes for a couple hours, and is not portioned per person, generally, so packing it up takes more time.

It's comparing apples to oranges; caterers at a wedding are an entirely different food animal than getting served at a sit down restaurant.

Well we are doing a plated dinner and our coordinator said she can box our food up so we can dig in when we get back to the hotel since most couples don't eat due to nerves or whatever...

We were told upfront that we would not be able to take any leftover food home from our reception as well (except for the cake, but that came from an outside vendor separate from our venue with in-house catering, so I guess that's why it was ok?)...seemed pretty standard. However, when we got in the limo after our exit, there was a shopping bag with two pretty large to-go boxes filled with food for DH and I...I was so thankful for that because we scarfed it down as soon as we got the hotel before we went down for the after party.

We can't take or bring any food from or to ours either.

I can't imagine taking food from a wedding, plated or buffet. It's a bizarre thought to me. I'm hoping we can take our own leftovers though as the married couple...

I think depending on the venue, you cannot take home food regardless. My venue has a restaurant and they actually give the bride and groom a take home plate because they know there isn't much time for us to eat.

I see why they don't allow it, health regs and all.

I'm just here to say I don't have to worry about this because my venue is backyard and our caterer is doing drop off so any leftover food I'm having the waitstaff pack up so our immediate family and ourselves can take because I love food.

If we couldn't take it due to venue/caterer reasons, I wouldn't change from buffet to plated because of that.

Eta- as a guest, I think it would be weird to go up and take food to bring home.

My sister was able to take the leftovers home from her wedding, we ate them the next day. I know most of the time this is not the case though.

All our extras were packed up for us to take home.

Our caterer is leaving the leftovers in pans in the fridge for us to take home. We're bringing take out boxes with us to the venue to divvy up the food after the reception.

Our venue does not allow us to take leftovers. I'm assuming health regulations. I thought it was silly at first, but after reading this it makes sense. I thought about taking leftovers and serving it at our gift opening the next day. But after reading everyone's input, glad I don't have the option!

Actually, taking leftovers rocks! My sister served BBQ at her wedding, which was freakishly hot and humid so nobody had an appetite for the meat and carb-heavy dishes. Afterward there was a TON of food left that was never even set out, but would be thrown away. Our family took away big pans of leftover entrees and stashed them in the fridge in our nearby airbnb. We used them for a dinner for OOT family that were still around the next day, and it worked great. You just have to work around the health food codes, and not give individuals doggie bags. We wouldn't have taken them if they were going to sit in a car for an hour drive home though.

My caterer was able to donate the extra food so that's what we did.

Health code says we can't take leftovers out of the venue.

We get to choose what we do with leftovers. Take home or donate to. Specific charity/soup kitchen