What Are Your Options For Meal Service?

When you are having a sit-down meal, you have some choices in how you want the food served.  Each choice has a different cost, so when you interviewing your facility or caterer, be sure to discuss these options.

Plated service means that your meal is plated ahead of time, and the plate is served to your guests with the food already put on it.

English service, sometimes referred to as home-style service, is similar to a home meal—plates or bowls of potatoes, vegetables, meatballs or whatever you are serving is placed on the table, and the guests help themselves from those bowls and plates.

Russian service is when food is cut into portions, and reassembled to appear whole, placed on a platter and then served to the guests. The wait staff serve portions to the guests from the platters of food.

French service is when the food is partially cooked in the kitchen, and then wait staff will bring a cart to a table to finish cooking the food in front of the guests.  The wait staff will offer the cooked food to the guests who will help themselves from the service plate.  This type of service requires a large number of trained staff, and the cost is high.  This type of service can be flamboyant—think flaming desserts—and is more common with small dinner receptions.  Not all facilities have the trained staff for this type of service.

Buffet service is well known.  It has one or more large tables with the food, and guests line up and serve themselves.  Sometimes there are cold food buffets, hot food buffets, and dessert buffets—to name the most common ones.  Cocktail receptions sometimes use a variety of buffet food stations, each serving specific dishes, and guests move from one station to another.

Since food and music and the two things your guests will remember the most from your wedding, you might consider a unique service style if your budget allows for it.  These are the typical food service styles—although many facilities and caterers have their own unique styles—often combining these traditional styles.

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