Welcome reception at hotel or nearby restaurant??

asdf54321

Hi All! We are hosting our wedding in San Diego where my fiance and I live but all of our family and majority of friends are on the East Coast. So we are treating this like a destination wedding. We decided to use a hotel for our room block that I'm not 100% in love with but it had is a good option and has affordable rooms.

There is a great restaurant about 5-8 minutes away from the hotel that we are using for our rehearsal dinner. Is it okay to host our welcome reception at the same restaurant after our dinner if we provide transportation for everyone? I heard that the standard is to host the welcome reception at the hotel to make it easiest on the guests. But for a better experience, would going off property be okay?

Jen4948

I'm not aware of destination weddings having "welcome receptions.". The only reception you need would take place immediately after the ceremony.

[Deleted User]

jcsandiego said:

Hi All! We are hosting our wedding in San Diego where my fiance and I live but all of our family and majority of friends are on the East Coast. So we are treating this like a destination wedding. We decided to use a hotel for our room block that I'm not 100% in love with but it had is a good option and has affordable rooms. There is a great restaurant about 5-8 minutes away from the hotel that we are using for our rehearsal dinner. Is it okay to host our welcome reception at the same restaurant after our dinner if we provide transportation for everyone? I heard that the standard is to host the welcome reception at the hotel to make it easiest on the guests. But for a better experience, would going off property be okay?

The rehearsal dinner and welcome reception can be the same thing.  As long as you feed the people required to attend the rehearsal immediately following the rehearsal, it doesn't matter if you invite extras.  This may actually be easier so that you don't have to host two events.

And at my sister's DW, the "welcome reception" was a sunset ride on a boat.  At my cousin's wedding, it was a banquet hall on base.  At my other cousin's wedding it was at the house.  So, no, it doesn't have to be at the hotel.

lyndausvi

You can host a welcome reception anywhere you want.  We hosted one for our 100% OOT wedding at the beach house we rented.

While not required, I always feel that if you can fit it in your budget welcome receptions are a great idea.  I know I LOVED being able to hang with out guests longer than just the wedding day.   The wedding day is just so crazy and goes so fast.   The welcome reception allowed us to really thank our guests for taking a few days of to travel to our wedding. 

Ours was not a big budget buster.  Since it was an open house (100 people came) we were able to keep the costs down. Had it been at a hotel or restuarant the costs would have been way more.

jenijoyk

We had a welcome reception at a bar a few minutes from the hotel. We didn't provide transportation though... I figured my guests were all adults who knew how to call a cab or uber (it was a less than $10 cab ride). I think most people carpooled anyway with those who had cars. I know I would never expect people to order transportation for me... shuttles to the wedding even are nice, but not required. 

It does seem a little awkward though to have the reception right after the rehearsal dinner, in the same place? Will it be obvious for those invited to the reception only that other people were just fed a meal? Is there a different bar or restaurant within walking distance of the rehearsal dinner? Or maybe you can at least move to a different part of the restaurant or something? Just a thought. 

[Deleted User]

I think what you have in mind works perfectly, especially if you provide transportation (which I don't think is necessary if the cab ride is around $10-15). We had a welcome reception and it was fantastic to see our guests. They also felt like we took extra effort to spend time with them since they had travelled.

Echoing what jenijoyk said, it might be a good idea to start the rehearsal dinner a bit earlier so that there's enough "buffer" room to make sure that all plates have been cleared etc… Also, keep the rehearsal guest list very limited so that other guests don't feel like they're part of a B-List.