Sit-down meals, many of which are multicourse affairs with exhaustively planned seating arrangements, have long been a cornerstone of the wedding reception.
But recently more couples are opting to forgo tradition in favor of more laid-back receptions with open seating and food served throughout the event. (In some cultures, of course, this has long been the norm.)
According to statistics from Minted, a marketplace and content site that sells wedding invitations and more, informal wedding receptions have grown 20 percent in 2024, compared with 2023.
Vishal Joshi, the chief executive of the wedding planning platform Joy, says his company has also noticed a trend toward casual or buffet-style receptions, especially in cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“Couples and their wedding guests can cut out a drawn-out formal meal and get straight to the partying,” said Sophia Parsa, an event planner in Los Angeles. Of the 10 weddings she has planned in the last year, only two receptions had sit-down dinners.
“A lot of my clients are young professionals who are paying for their weddings and are conscious of making sure they’re worthwhile,” she said. “They want to maximize their fun and find the usual ceremony, cocktail hour, sit-down dinner and then dancing and after-party too long and exhausting.”
One example is the August 2023 wedding she planned for her sister, Lillia Parsa, 31, a president of Capitol Music Group, and Andrew Brooks, 36, the chief executive of the fashion brand Sinclair Global. The couple, who live in Los Angeles, hosted 175 guests at Wildflower Farms, Auberge Resorts Collection, in the Hudson Valley of New York.
After the ceremony, guests were invited to an oval-shaped wood dance floor covered in reflective green vinyl to match the outdoor setting. The area was flanked by lounge seating and five elaborate food stations — with choices including Persian kebabs and dips, barbecue, slices from the Manhattan institution Prince Street Pizza and cookies from Levain Bakery — that were open all night.
“I wanted to entice my guests to stay on the dance floor and keep the excitement high all night,” the bride said. “I didn’t want to tire them out or bore them with a long-winded dinner.”
Dina Sahim, a friend of Ms. Parsa’s who attended, said the setup helped make for an exceptional event: “I felt like I was at a really hip party that I didn’t want to leave.”
Some receptions find a middle ground, offering part of a meal in a sit-down, assigned format and the rest in a help-yourself style. Jordan Levine, the founder of Jordan Wolf Productions, an event production company in New York, planned an 850-person wedding this June at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles where the desserts, which included mini tiramisus, were passed throughout the room.
Forfeiting sit-down receptions comes with other advantages, too.
Emily Barry, the vice president of weddings at Minted, said that open seating saved a significant amount of space, allowing for a larger dance floor. “A smaller, jam-packed dance floor can be too intimidating to some couples,” she added.
Cost is another factor. Mr. Joshi, of Joy, noted that sit-down dinners can cost 30 to 40 percent more than casual dining. “Considering that food and beverages can account for 40 percent of the wedding budget, many couples see this as a way to achieve substantial savings,” he said.
Mr. Joshi said that sustainability was a consideration, too. “Couples today are increasingly eco-conscious, and our data shows that buffet-style receptions waste less food,” he said, because guests tend to take only the amount they want.
Valerie Edwards, a planner in Bozeman, Mont., who founded Valerie Joy Events, is now preparing for the July 2025 nuptials of Justin Snyder, 30, a music producer, and Hannah Brown, 29, a nanny. The couple, who lives in North Hollywood, will marry at the Sanctuary at Crow Hollow Ranch, a property in Livingston, Mont., that Mr. Snyder’s family owns.
Mr. Snyder said their biggest priority was to have a reception with a more interactive environment — one that wasn’t overly expensive didn’t hurt either. They plan to serve dinner from a wood-fired pizza truck and offer salads, assorted pies and charcuterie. The money they’re saving will go toward their honeymoon, he said.
For some couples, abandoning a sit-down meal means doing away with the notoriously fraught seating plan. Chelsea Ramsey, 31, a florist in Milford, Mass., and her husband Dave, 31, an I.T. specialist, were married in September at Mount Hope Farm, in Bristol, R.I., and had a reception tent with a mix of seating styles and food stations.
Ms. Ramsey said she “couldn’t be bothered with creating a seating chart,” adding that she had seen “how stressful seating can get with guests commenting on whether they got the better table or not.”
Not in their case, she said. “Our reception was relaxed, and everyone was focused on the fun, which is exactly how we wanted it.”
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