MG's-anyone have a wedding with over 200 ppl?

AllieCat16

did you spend the whole reception trying to say hi to all of your guests or were you actually able to enjoy yourself?

i wanted a smaller wedding but it was just not possible. i am excited for everyone that is coming to celebrate with us but at the same time nervous FI and I are not going to enjoy everything we worked so hard on

Lola Minnie

I had 250 guests and basically spent my cocktail hour saying hello to everyone.  Luckily I had some food upstairs in the bridal suite for about 15 minutes of the start of cocktail hour before saying hello so I didn't totally miss the food.

I feel like you have to atleast make an effort to try to say hello to everyone even if it's a quick kiss hello.

wagnerdi

My wedding is going to be a minimum of 250, I'm going to use Lola's plan of saying hi during cocktail hour.  I want to be able to enjoy the wedding too and not have to eat 2 bites of food then run around the whole time.  We allowed enough time after the church to get all pics done prior to cocktail hour so the bridal party and my FI and I can try to enjoy that time.

Laurms15

DH and I did a recieving line so that we could make sure we saw all the guests. At the reception we tried to make rounds at cocktail hour. During the seated dinner DH and I were ALWAYS served first that way we could eat a bit and then still have time to get up and go around to the tables while others were eating. We made a point to go around to the tables of the older guests who would expect it and anyone who we were partying with on the dance floor (which was the majority) we just figured that making our way and dancing around the floor was good enough!

felicia220

We had 270 people, we had planned on taking pictures with all of our tables so we could see all of our guests.  There was no way to make it happen because people were never sitting at their tables.  There were a few tables that we were able to go over and say hello but most of the people we saw on the dance floor.  We were also at our cocktail hour so we got to say hello to people then.  Even so, we still didn't not get to say hi to everyone.  Which I feel bad about, but if they were dancing the whole night, i guess that means they had a good time and didn't mind.  

Heather822

I'll be honest ~ its very, very hard to do.
We had 130 people and though it was our plan, did not get to nearly everyone during cocktail hour... we got to MAYBE 1/2 of them.
The thing is you can not just go up to people and say 'hi thanks for coming' as you keep walking. People start conversations with you, want to comment your dress /  the ceremony / the food / etc. And it is the nice & right thing to do to spend some time conversing with them.
For 200 people, in a 60 minute cocktail hour, you would need to talk to approximately 3 people a minute.... like 33 seconds a person. It will never happen. You should prepare to do something in addition, such as not have your salad course and visit some tables then. (DH did this for the people we missed at cocktail hour and it all worked out.)

DandT1206

we said hello to almost everyone during cocktail hour (we had about 215 guests).  you have to keep it short and sweet and move along to the next group.  we did another lap around the reception room during dinner to make sure we covered everyone.

[Deleted User]

We're having 250 and were asking he same question. FI's brother had 208 at his wedding and they said they spent most of the night apart so they could use the line "Excuse me, I have to go look for my new wife" - they got a bunch of "Awww, go ahead"s so nobody felt bad about not spending more than 2 mins with them. Ha

stapletond

We had 210 guests so it was a challenge to say hello to everyone, but we did out best!  We requested to have a private cocktail hour with food brought up to the bridal suite for the first 20 minutes of the cocktail hour.  This allowed us to decompress after the ceremony and EAT! 

We tried to say hello to as many people as possible during the cocktail hour and during the various breaks from dancing.  We really wanted to enjoy our day and dance too!  So many people come up to you anyway on the dancefloor!  We made a point to visit the elderly guests at their seats, since they wouldn't be dancing with us!

chrissy31805

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_new-jersey_mgs-anyone-wedding-over-200-ppl?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:90Discussion:0f331f9d-c1c0-44de-8a18-5c576b32900fPost:3e18d4b3-3a3a-4baf-8547-2327b7ac4708">Re: MG's-anyone have a wedding with over 200 ppl?</a>:
[QUOTE]DH and I did a recieving line so that we could make sure we saw all the guests. At the reception we tried to make rounds at cocktail hour. During the seated dinner DH and I were ALWAYS served first that way we could eat a bit and then still have time to get up and go around to the tables while others were eating. We made a point to go around to the tables of the older guests who would expect it and anyone who we were partying with on the dance floor (which was the majority) we just figured that making our way and dancing around the floor was good enough!
Posted by Laurms15[/QUOTE]

this is great advice and something i probably should have done. we also had cocktail hour free to make our rounds and say hi to everyone but there were people we definately missed. we had about 210 people there. we were dancing the entire night and the older people definately did  not get a chance to be with us as much as our friends and younger family were. we had extra time during dinner -- we were done eating and people still had thier meals - when we should have went to the tables to talk to everyone