Buffet vs Heavy hordourves

Growing up in the Midwest I always envisioned a buffet dinner at my wedding like all the others I attended. Now that I'm engaged, we have decided to get married in his hometown of Memphis, and traditions are quite different. The major issue I'm still dealing with is wether to have a buffet dinner or "heavy hordourves".

The reception probably wont start until 8 pm (wedding mass at 6:30 pm), so it could go either way. My family has never heard of heavy hordourves, and his family had never heard of a buffet wedding. Heavy hordourves is much more disorganized, since not everyone is sitting at the same time, so I'm a little worried it will be harder to give toasts, etc. The wedding is semi-formal. Any advice?

We were going to do heavy appetizers for cost savings but I actually realized I could have approximately the same cost with a stations wedding, which might be a good compromise. In stations you have small buffets in different parts of the room, in my case a four salad station in one place, pastas in a second place and roast carved prime rib and turkey in a third place. These allows for a lack of fomramiilty, a full meal and the abitility to do a seating chart.



>Growing up in the Midwest I always envisioned a buffet dinner
>at my wedding like all the others I attended. Now that I'm
>engaged, we have decided to get married in his hometown of
>Memphis, and traditions are quite different. The major issue
>I'm still dealing with is wether to have a buffet dinner or
>"heavy hordourves".
>
>The reception probably wont start until 8 pm (wedding mass at
>6:30 pm), so it could go either way. My family has never heard
>of heavy hordourves, and his family had never heard of a
>buffet wedding. Heavy hordourves is much more disorganized,
>since not everyone is sitting at the same time, so I'm a
>little worried it will be harder to give toasts, etc. The
>wedding is semi-formal. Any advice?