Why the Dinner Matters More Here

At a city wedding the dinner is one block in a long day. In Lapland, especially in winter, it is often the main event. Daylight is short, the ceremony is brief because of the cold, and the evening belongs to the table: a warm room, candles, good food and a window onto snow or a lake.

It is also where the setting shows. Arctic ingredients such as reindeer, salmon, wild berries and foraged herbs give the menu a sense of place that no imported menu can match. Guests who have flown a long way want to taste where they are, and couples who care about food often find it is the most personal part of the wedding.

Full disclosure: Rovaniemi Weddings is our own company, which Alla founded after planning her own wedding in 2024. We plan and style the room and coordinate the caterers and venues, and we do not cook ourselves. This post is the guide we would give a friend, and the figures come from our own published cost guide and the Silver Birch Resort rates.

Five Dinner Formats We Plan

The format drives the cost more than the menu does. These are the five we use most.

The glass dome seats two to six, and the Invisible Restaurant seats up to 44 for a private wedding dinner. Restaurant Roavvi at Aurora Hill Resort seats up to 60, with private use of the whole restaurant possible.

What the Numbers Look Like

Here is what we can state from our own published figures. Please treat them as guides: a custom quote follows a consultation, and nothing is hidden.

• Sit-down dinner for 20 to 50 guests: roughly €50 to €150 per person, depending on courses, drinks and venue.
• Silver Birch Resort: a four-course served dinner at €60 per guest, a buffet dinner from €43 per guest, and a cocktail reception with canapés at €28 per guest.
• Silver Birch venue hire: from €799 until midnight, each extra hour after midnight from €99, plus a staff service fee from €219 and a cleaning fee from €119.
• Venue costs in general: a cabin or glass igloo for an intimate day €500 to €1,500; hotel or resort event space €2,000 to €8,000.

A worked example, for illustration only: a four-course dinner at €60 for 20 guests is €1,200 for the food. Add the venue hire from €799 and the service and cleaning fees from €219 and €119 and the venue line is from €1,137, so the dinner and room together start at about €2,337 before drinks, which are priced separately. The figure moves with guest count, season and what you add, so use it as a way to see the shape of the cost, not a quote.

Menus: What Lapland Actually Serves

Menus here lean on a few reliable ingredients: reindeer, lake and river fish such as salmon and zander, root vegetables, rye and barley, wild mushrooms, and berries such as cloudberry and lingonberry. At Silver Birch Resort the sample four-course menu includes sugar-salted zander, root-vegetable soup, lightly smoked reindeer and a cloudberry crème brûlée, and the buffet includes reindeer, beef brisket and Lapland potatoes. Those are examples from the published menus, not a promise for your date.

Three practical notes. First, tell us early about dietary needs and allergies, because a remote kitchen cannot improvise at the last minute, and we pass the details to the caterer. Second, keep one dish familiar: not every guest wants reindeer, and a good fish or vegetarian course is always welcome. Third, think about warmth. In winter, serve something hot first, such as a soup, and avoid long standing receptions outdoors.

For a lighter format, a cocktail reception with canapés at €28 per guest at Silver Birch Resort is a good way to host a larger group without a full seated dinner.

Choosing Between Seated, Buffet and Cocktail

Each format suits a different kind of wedding.

• Seated, four courses: the most formal and the most relaxed for guests, who do not have to queue in winter clothing. It needs the longest room time and the most staff.
• Buffet: usually the lowest per-guest price and the best for varied tastes, but it takes space and means people moving around in a warm room. In Lapland we would keep the buffet short and the room warm.
• Cocktail reception with canapés: good for a larger group, a shorter evening or a toast after an outdoor ceremony.

For a very small group, a villa dinner around an open kitchen, or a dinner by the fire in a hut, is hard to beat. Our guide to a small wedding in Lapland for 20 to 30 guests shows how one table changes the feel of the evening.

Styling the Table

Because we style as well as plan, we think about the table as part of the room, not an afterthought. In winter, we use candles in many sizes, lanterns, reindeer hides and warm metal accents; in summer, linen runners, wildflowers and birch. We use high-quality artificial and preserved flowers chosen for Arctic conditions, and they last as keepsakes.

A few simple rules from our experience: keep centrepieces low enough that guests can see each other; use more candles than you think; and choose one strong colour accent, not five. A hand-lettered menu and place cards add warmth for very little cost; our service list includes digital design for menus, invitations and seating charts. For the wider picture, see our guide to Lapland wedding ideas, palettes and flowers by season.

Timing the Dinner Around the Light and the Cold

In winter the day is short, so a typical wedding runs ceremony in the early afternoon, photographs in the last light, a toast, and dinner starting in the early evening. That leaves time for a long dinner and a quiet end, rather than a late finish after a day outdoors in the cold.

In summer the midnight sun changes everything. Dinner can start late, the ceremony can be in the evening and the photographs can be taken at the softest light close to midnight. Venue hire hours matter then: Silver Birch Resort’s hire runs until midnight, with an hourly extra after that, so it is worth deciding in advance whether you want to dance until two. Our guide to a Lapland winter wedding day timeline shows the hours for winter in detail.

Drinks, Toasts and the Warm Welcome

Dinner is only half of what guests consume, and drinks are the line that surprises couples most, because venues and caterers price them separately from the food. Decide early whether you want an open bar, a fixed drinks package, wine with dinner only, or just a toast. For a small wedding, a welcome drink, wine or beer with dinner and a champagne or sparkling toast is plenty, and it keeps the evening calm. We agree the approach with the venue and caterer, and it is part of the clear quote we give.

In winter, think warm. A hot drink as guests arrive from the cold, a hot berry drink or a mulled option, changes the mood of the first ten minutes, and a toast in the Ice Bar after an Ice Chapel ceremony is a Lapland tradition many couples love. In summer, serve something cold and simple as guests arrive in the long evening light.

One more tip is to plan the speeches before dinner, not after. Cold guests and tired guests do not want a long speech between courses, and short toasts, two or three minutes each, work best when the food is hot and the room is warm. If you want a cake, plan for it too: a small cake cut at the end of dinner is simpler than a dessert buffet, and it photographs well in candlelight.

Finally, ask the venue about last orders and the end of the evening. At a remote venue, guests rely on taxis or a transfer you arrange, so the end time of the dinner is a logistics question as much as a celebration question. We build it into the timeline so nobody waits in the cold for a car.

How to Plan the Dinner With Us

Wedding planning with us runs in five simple steps.

1. Tell us about your day: your date, guest count, wishes and ideas.
2. Consultation and estimate: a meeting in person or online, and a price estimate during the call or shortly after.
3. Agreement and deposit: a simple agreement and a deposit that secures your date.
4. Planning together: we source and book the venue and caterer; you choose, we handle every booking and email.
5. Your wedding day: we install the room, run the timeline and quietly solve the small things.

We reply within one business day. Start on the contact page, or read about our Weddings and Lapland Wedding Planner service.

FAQ

Our Honest Final Word

Plainly: Rovaniemi Weddings is our own company, and we would like to plan your wedding. But the dinner advice is useful whoever you hire: choose the format before the menu, ask for all-in numbers including venue fees, and keep the room warm and the table simple. The setting does most of the work.

Start with Lapland Wedding Cost for the ranges, then look at Silver Birch Resort, Arcticmint Villa and Aurora Hill Resort for rooms of different sizes. We reply within a business day.

Rovaniemi Weddings · by Joona & Alla

Weddings and dinners we plan in Lapland

Every option is planned, set up and quietly packed down by our own team, and nearly every proposal includes a photographer. Tell us your story and we reply within one business day.

WeddingsLapland Wedding CostRovaniemi WeddingsSee more →VenueSilver Birch ResortLake Jyrhämäjärvi, Rovaniemi — about 20 km from Rovaniemi, around 30 minutes from the airportSee more →VenueArcticmint VillaLake Norvajärvi, Rovaniemi — about 20 minutes from Rovaniemi city centre, 15 minutes from Rovaniemi Airport and Santa Claus VillageSee more →VenueAurora Hill ResortOllerovaara, Rovaniemi — Rovaniemi's highest hill, about 10 km / ten minutes from the city centreSee more →

Rovaniemi Weddings is our own wedding planning and proposal design company — Joona & Alla, based in Rovaniemi. We plan, style and coordinate proposals and weddings across Lapland, Finland, Sweden and Norway.