20 more days!! Reception timeline of events?

dianab0237

i am starting to prepare our day of time line including our reception timeline of events and am thinking that since we are having a small wedding (18 guests) and our guests are quite calm aka not sure if it will be a "dance all night" type of party <much to my dismay >, about breaking up the reception events. for example:

4pm - ceremony
4:30-5:30pm - cocktail hour
5:30pm - thank you speech and blessing of the meal
5:45pm-7pm- dinner
7pm- first dance and opening the dance floor immediatley after
7:45pm- cake cutting and ice cream buffet opens, dancing continues
8:30pm - fire knife dancer performance
8:50pm - last dance and end of reception

Is this awkward? If you girls have any suggestion or advice for our small wedding reception, that would be great!

Tanq&Tonic

That works!  Keep in mind you and some of your guests are from the East Coast, so you'll have a 6 hour time difference, so 9pm will feel like 3am to most of you.  You could always work with the DJ to say if people are totally partying, you can extend another hour.

Our DJ also told us he felt 90 minutes of dancing was about the max he recommends for most parties, so it seems like you have just about that, along with some breaks.

One thing you may want to consider is whether you want to put the cake cutting right after dinner?  That way you're not breaking up the dancing more than once.

Finally, if you do have your venue until 10pm, you can consider some lounge furniture or just your reception chairs -- sometimes people don't want to dance longer than 90 minutes but are happy to sit around and chat with the waves in the background.

AKWinterBride

We danced for about 2 hours and I was dead dead dead tired by 10pm when we had to leave.  We were going to do an after party and I am so glad that we saved some money and didn't do that cause my husband literally had to carry me to bed I was so tired that night! 

dianab0237

thanks girls. tanc- i agree. i'm thinking about moving the fire knife performance to right after dinner, to follow with some dancing then cake cutting. or maybe like you said, do the cake cutting right after dinner, then the fire knife dancer then the party can begin! maybe we will integrate our first dance between the first and second course that way we can just kick off the dancing right after the fire knife dancer. i know,  i'm overanalyzing!