Reception Length How long??

christie311

How long is a typical reception? The venue we are looking at allows for only 5hrs. Is that enough time? How long are/were yours and what did you fit in there. I want there to be enough dance time once the formal stuff is out of the way!

nnoble4

We are having a 1-1.5 hour cocktail "hour" (depends on whether, as our reception room is  our rain plan), then a 4 hour reception. I think for a dinner and dancing reception, it's generally 4-5 hours.  So, I guess my only concern would be if they are including your cocktial hour as part of your reception.

I think an actual reception over 5 hours is probably a little much, imo.

KellyRVT

This is our schedule. We get the venue from 3 hours before the ceremony time until midnight if we want. Honestly, I think 4-5 hours is plenty. That's a lot of dancing in an evening! I think we'll be done by 11pm, everyone says we'll be exhausted by then anyway.  

Ceremony :30

Cocktail hour: 4-5

Dinner; 5:30-6:30

Reception- 7-12

christie311

ok makes me feel much better!! our cocktail hr is included in that 5hr window so it sounds like we will be ok. thanks!!!

[Deleted User]

I think 5 hours is plenty of time. We had our venue all day, so it people could stay as late as they wanted.

MissOwl

5 hours is standard (including cocktail hour) for most venues. sometimes it's nice if you can rent the venue for the whole day/night so your guests can stay later if they want, but it depends on your crowd. my friends have already told me they want me to end my reception at 11 so they can go party afterward.

buckeyesweetz

I'm glad someone posted about this....

Ours is contracted for 4 hours with the option to add additional time. We are planning on eating an hour into the reception... with the first hour being cocktails and what not. We plan on doing the first dance in the last 10 minutes of cocktail hour, and then going right into dinner. There will only be one toast at dinner. After that we will do a mother/son and father daughter/dance followed by cake cutting.... and then free dancing for the rest of the time. We aren't planning any other special stuff. Do you all think 4 hours is okay or would it be worth it to add the additional hour??? Now that we have received a good chunk of our RSVPs we expect about 120is, so not a huge wedding.

I've been going back and forth with this for WEEKS! On one hand I'm afriad I'll be sad if it ends TOO early, but on the other hand of course it is more cost effective NOT to pay for another hour of bar services and whatever... .especially since it is $/person and there probably will be some people that will leave early. I just don't know! Should I add the extra hour?

green795

We had the venue from 6-midnight and we ended ours around 11:30. We used the first hour for cocktails, the next 2 1/2 for dinner, greeting/thanking guests at their tables, and cake cutting. The rest of the time was spent on the special dances, bouquet toss, garter toss, and dancing. 5 hours is pretty standard, but I would write out a timeline and stick to the timeline so you have enough time for everything. Greeting guests took longer than we thought, so it was nice to have that little cushion of time in case we ran over.

AlliD11

We are doing 1 hour of cocktail hour then 4 hours of reception. I have heard that is plenty of time!