So my wedding is 8 months away and my MIL wants to invite her whole universe to the wedding (which she is paying for). After months of fighting about HER 150 person guest list and her desire to have TWO RECEPTIONS (yes T-W-O), we settled on having everything at the church with a dry reception.
Fast forward a couple of months, my stepmother graciously hired a wedding planner for me as a gift.
She suggested (due to my immense amount of stress) to separate the two events and have the reception somewhere else (where we could better control the guest list - as opposed to basically having an open wedding/reception).
After reviewing different reception venues and comparing them, we settled on a nice venue with an all-inclusive package (open bar, wine during dinner, champagne, 3 course meal, wedding cake, etc.) because it was not much more expensive than lesser venues.
SO, as before, my MIL is wanting to have "cake and punch" post receiving line for the wedding. Since this is anticipated to be a large wedding, I'm concerned about the time it takes for a receiving line as well as what happens when the guests get their cake and punch?
Will they be expecting some sort of speech (which we may not have time to give depending on the number of people invited)? Right now the plan is to greet all the guests individually and head to the reception for a more intimate gathering.
My first instinct says that people will cut the receiving line and head straight for the food and then we won't be able to greet them before we leave.
Thoughts?