Yes. Feed everyone who is on site through the dinner hour: the photographer and their second shooter, the videographer or content creator, the DJ or every member of the band, the planner or coordinator, and the officiant if they're staying. Not the people who deliver and leave: the florist, the cake, the rentals.
They eat when your guests eat, in the same window, so they're back on their feet before the plates are cleared and nothing in the second half of the night happens without a camera on it. They eat in the room or in one right off it, close enough to hear the MC.
It's a courtesy, and it's also a logistics fact: a hungry photographer at hour nine is a worse photographer. Most caterers have a 'vendor meal' option, and a lot of contracts require one, so read yours before you assume.
Who eats
The rule of thumb is anyone working across the meal for four hours or more. Count them off the Team Sheet, not from memory: the assistant, the second shooter, the six people in a six-piece band, the coordinator's helper. Ask each provider on the sheet about allergies the same way you ask guests.
When
With the entrees, or with the first course. Never after the guests. Here's why, from my seat: I eat standing at the booth in about eight minutes with the music still running and one eye on the room, because the DJ's meal is the one that decides when the room goes quiet.
If the vendor meals come out after the guests are done, the photographer is eating during the cake, the band is eating during the parent dances, and I'm eating during the toasts, which is the one thing in the night I can't do with a fork in my hand. With a buffet, send the providers through in the middle of the table release, not at the end, so they're finished before the cake gap.
And if the toasts sit between courses, the photographer can't eat until they're over, which is one more reason I put the toasts before dinner (The Toasts).
Where
A vendor table in the room, or a room right off it with the door open. Not the hallway floor, not a car in the parking lot. I have eaten in a coat closet, and I have eaten at a table set with the same linens as the guests. Guess which reception I still talk about.
The table needs to be somewhere the photographer can drop a fork and be at the head table in fifteen seconds when something starts to happen, and where the DJ can see the floor. Tell the caterer where it is; they don't always ask.
What
The same meal as your guests, or a simpler hot plate. The caterer will tell you what their vendor meal is; some serve the guest entree, some have a separate menu. The count goes to the caterer with the final guest count, the week of, and the where and the when go on the Team Sheet so the venue manager and the caterer read the same line.
Every row on the Team Sheet carries three meal fields, how many, where, and when, and the sheet totals them for the caterer.
What usually goes wrong here
A count that forgot the assistant. A caterer who sent a sandwich when the contract said a hot meal. Meals that came out after the cake, so the band ate through the parent dances. A vendor table nobody told the caterer about, so it was never set. Every one of those is one line on the sheet, written the week before.
Questions I get asked
Do we feed the officiant?
If they're staying for the reception, yes, as a guest, at a table. If they leave after the ceremony, no meal, but a thank-you.
Does the band eat one at a time so the music never stops?
Some do, in shifts, with a break playlist under it. Ask them how they handle it and put the answer on their row. A DJ keeps the music on and eats standing up.
What if the venue has no space for a vendor table?
Then a table at the edge of the room with the guests, and I mean that. It has happened plenty, and the guests never notice. What they notice is a dark booth and silence.
Feed the people who are on their feet for you. Write the count down, tell the caterer where, and send them when you eat. Nothing about it is complicated, and forgetting it is the one mistake your providers will remember.
Thanks! Chuck