When talking with your caterer or venue you need to discuss when you prefer your vendors to eat. Most venues and caterers will tell you that they will feed your vendors once everyone else has been served. The only issue with this is by the time everyone has been served your vendors are literally sitting around 15-30 minutes and then by the time they get their food they only have 5 minutes and most of the time less to eat.
Many places wont even serve vendors till after every single part of the meal has been served. After photographing, video recording, and even planning many weddings I see this at almost every single one. Many times I have had to run so I don’t miss the Father/Daughter dance or the cake cutting because I literally received food a minute before. There have also been times where I have seen another vendor miss the next important thing because they didn’t get there food till right before. There have been times where I have not eaten since breakfast early in the morning and then have not been able to eat dinner either. By the end I don’t have any energy left.
It makes no sense to have your vendors doing nothing when everyone else is eating so give them the time to eat and get some energy back into them. It will overall help the quality of what they specialize in after dinner. Tell your caterer/venue to feed the vendors as soon as food starts to be served.