How did you feel at the end of the night?

Carla1019

My wedding planner has said multiple times that at the end of the night I am going to feel extremely tired, but here I keep reading many brides say it went by too fast.

If you had a reception that ended at midnight, did you feel ready to leave or did you want to keep partying? We have the option to buy another hour but we must let them know in advance.

Trying to decide if I should pay for the extra hour?

Girlie1030

I was tired but also excited to get to the hotel and not go to sleep right away.    The night does go by way too fast but a lot of our guests were ready to call it by Midnight. 

rlavach

Our reception was from 5-10p and I was definitely tired by them. When everyone is up and dancing, you're just running on the adrenaline & don't feel it. I was tired, but not exhausted. By 10:15p, most of the guests were gone & I practically collapsed. I was toast. I drove us home & was wicked tired. There was no way I would've lasted to midnigt.

We also didn't go to bed right away  

gundy21

We had to be out of our venue by midnight - last song was at about 11:15.  It went fast, but the timing was about right.

I was beyond tired and so was DH.  I had injured my knee about a week before, so I was ready to get off my feet, elevate my knee and get ice on it.  Not the most romantic thought, but it is what it is!    Luckily I was doing much better when we left on our mini-moon 2 days later! 

OBX2011

Our reception was from 6:00 - midnight and I still had a lot of adrenaline going through me when it was over, but by the time DH carried me up the stairs to the beach house....I was exhausted!  Now, that didn't stop us from having some bubbly in the hot tub to celebrate though

Your wedding night will fly by in the blink of an eye.  Everything seems so surreal that you can't believe it's already over with.  At some point in the evening, you and H should take a moment and step back from everything and just observe.  Take mental images of your friends and family laughing or Crazy Aunt Phyllis trying to do the Cupid Shuffle with her Grandkids, lol.  Like I said, before you know it........it'll all be over with.

jemmini6

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_wedding-recap-withdrawal_how-did-you-feel-at-the-end-of-the-night?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:12Discussion:cd247120-d5d1-4603-82eb-c7bdf4b1ec87Post:9143f958-39e6-4496-a505-c2f135f11a91">How did you feel at the end of the night?</a>:
[QUOTE]<strong>My wedding planner has said multiple times that at the end of the night I am going to feel extremely tired, but here I keep reading many brides say it went by too fast.</strong> If you had a reception that ended at midnight, did you feel ready to leave or did you want to keep partying? We have the option to buy another hour but we must let them know in advance. Trying to decide if I should pay for the extra hour?
Posted by Carla1019[/QUOTE]

Those things are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, when things go by fast, it's usually more exhausting.

To answer your question though, H and I were utterly exhausted after our wedding.  Our venue was on the opposite side of town from a lot of our guests (an hour+ drive), so a lot of them couldn't stay all night, but by 10pm, I was so glad that everyone was leaving so that I could just go to sleep.

Summer2011Bride

We were ready to leave. Ours ended at 11, but by the time we got out of there it was close to midnight, then we had to drive across town and check into our hotel room. We literally passed out as soon as I got all the bobby pins out of my hair It didn't help though that I was very dehydrated and it was near 100 degrees that day with lots of outside pictures.

Cinderella30

The day went by so fast.  We were happy but exhausted.  Then again, we had a long day with the ceremony beginning at 3 and cocktail/reception beginning at 6 ending at 12 and then an after party that lasted until 4 am... ; ) We really wanted to enjoy every minute of our day.

rlavach

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_wedding-recap-withdrawal_how-did-you-feel-at-the-end-of-the-night?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:12Discussion:cd247120-d5d1-4603-82eb-c7bdf4b1ec87Post:5e4a5b28-50a5-41ff-abdc-3e178dc2ca65">Re: How did you feel at the end of the night?</a>:
[QUOTE]Our reception was from 6:00 - midnight and I still had a lot of adrenaline going through me when it was over, but by the time DH carried me up the stairs to the beach house....I was exhausted!  Now, that didn't stop us from having some bubbly in the hot tub to celebrate though ;) <strong>Your wedding night will fly by in the blink of an eye.  Everything seems so surreal that you can't believe it's already over with.  At some point in the evening, you and H should take a moment and step back from everything and just observe.  Take mental images of your friends and family laughing or Crazy Aunt Phyllis trying to do the Cupid Shuffle with her Grandkids, lol.  Like I said, before you know it........it'll all be over with.</strong>
Posted by OBX2011[/QUOTE]
I ditto absolutely every word of this. So incredibly true.

Queen Jane

After all our guests left and H and I went up to our suite, we had some more wine, looked through our guest book, opened cards and stayed up for quite awhile talking about the day. I'd say it was two hours or so before we even "went to bed". I don't recall being exhausted and it was a super long day.

blgrout

Our reception was 5-9 (on Sunday) and everyone was pretty much ready to go home by the end, and I was tired, but got my second wind by the time H and I got to the hotel and cracked open a bottle of bubbly.   

The day does fly by, it's pretty crazy and I thought it sounded cliche for people to keep saying that, but it's true.  It's surreal and fun and crazy and I loved every minute of the day.

TaraW1979

My reception was from 4-9. We added an extra hour on but only about 3/4 of the guests really stayed until the very end. However, my wedding was in the middle of January and it was cold and there was a little bit of snow on the ground. I was tired at the end but the hotel that our out of town guests stayed at extended the hours of the bar for us and we ended up drinking until about 11, but really there were only about 15 of us. So in my opinion, it depends on the time of the year and also if you have a close by bar to go to that may be a better option then adding on an hour.

librababy

Interesting.  I went to a wedding where the end time was 12 and by that time many of the guests had already left (some started leaving at 10...3 pm ceremony start time).  And it was a Saturday night.  The bride looked like she could have partied some more LOL. 

Nshivers

Very interesting reading everyone's response for the night of, great insight. We were thinking of purchasing another hour as well, but I think we'll stick with what we have.

kkos89

My reception ended at midnigt... My husband and I were pooped. 2 of my BM's wanted to go out and keep partying, but we just went home. It took the hubby like 45 mins to undo my dress thanks to him not knowing how to un-tie my corest back dress The night went by soooo fast... I wanna get married again.

latina40299

Our wedding ended at 11:30, we were both tired by then but had to drop off out of town guest at our home, after dropping them off we drove back to the hotel, we were so happy to be able to relax and unwind from the days excitement.

bridetobemo

Between the wedding and pictures and the reception we were basically going from 8:00 am - 10:00 pm, so I was basically running on pure adrenaline and as soon as my butt hit the seat of the limo I was ready to pass out!

RNMOMTO3

We had a perfectly beautiful day and I was on such a wonderful high from a dream wedding that I was tired but jazzed up also. We just sat on the couch and opened cards and gifts that we didn't get to earlier and talked about the fabulous day.

mattycam

I would say it went fast. We had to be out of our reception hall by 1am but I think a lot of guests could have stayed another hour especially since we didn't open the dance floor until 11pm.

joannrichm

Our reception ended @ 9PM, and most were gone by 815PM....BUT we had a pre-planned afterparty at the hotel bar where we were staying.  We made sure everyone knew thats where we would be, and had a crowd of about 50 that partied til midnight, everyone changed clothes and let their hair down...best option ever, the people who really wanted to party showed up, and it cost us less $$.  We were both tired by the end of the reception & afterparty :-)