How long should the dinner portion last?

This depends a lot on whether you’re having a buffet or plated meal and how many guests you have.

Echo PP. I budgeted a little over an hour for a 3 course plated meal for 115 guests for reference. We also did the spotlight dances. If anything, the people who are still eating can continue to do so once the dance floor opens.

View Quoted Comment Agree with this. Typical timeframe is an hour and I probably wouldn’t go shorter, but it might need to be longer if you have lots of guests.

View Quoted Comment It will be a buffet with about 200 guests.

I asked our venue manager how long it takes for our full dinner to serve since we had a lot of courses. He said 1.5 hours. so you could ask the venue manager

Definitely ask your caterer or venue as they will know best. Ours took about two hours because we had a multi course plated meal.

View Quoted Comment Buffet takes longer because it takes a while for everyone to go through the line to get their food. Also, many couples choose to do table visits while people eat so you'll need time to do this. I would allow at least 1.5 hours for dinner.

With a buffet of 200 people, give at least 1.5 hours, probably closer to 2. Buffets take longer for everyone to cycle through. When we were talking with our venue, they recommend an hour for our 130 people, seated dinner. If it was buffet they would have added time.

I Went to a wedding with 235 guests and it was buffet style. Once everyone was seated after getting food they did the cake cutting and first dances to “double up” while everyone was eating. And it only takes like 30 minutes to eat. But definitely ask your venue manager and especially your caterer. They will know.

Our dinner portion will run about 45 minutes, but the buffet will be open about 2 hours if people want to get seconds during the reception.

View Quoted Comment I like the doubling up idea. Everyone told me that a reception only lasts about 3-4 hours so that’s all I booked my venue for (with a few additional hours before for set up and after for clean up). I thought about doing 45 minutes of dedicated dinner then have speeches then the special dances.

View Quoted Comment Yes do as much as you can during the dinner hour speeches are good to have done as well! Most are about 4 hours I’d say so two hours just for dinner seems a bit crazy to me. That wedding with the 235 guests was a 4 hour reception including cocktail hour and dinner and there was plenty of time for dancing!