We had a medium sized (small to some people) wedding with 80 guests.
We did a receiving line to make sure we got to say hello and thank you to everyone. We had a plated lunch reception and we were served first. As we finished we got up and did table visits to spend more time with our guests.
Once the dance floor was opened up we danced with our guests, we visited with people who were sitting at tables chatting and we still had the opportunity to sneak away for 30ish minutes for some additional pictures.
We had a blast at our reception and did everything we wanted to do and got to spend time with all of our guests.
We're planning to do as many pictures pre-ceremony as possible, so our post-ceremony pictures will hopefully only last a half an hour and then we can join the cocktail hour for half an hour and socialize.
We're planning to sit at a "regular" table for dinner, so we can socialize with our closest friends while we eat, and then get up and do table visits as soon as we finish eating. We have the rest of our lives to have dinners alone, I want to eat with my guests at the wedding.
We're not doing the spotlight dances until after the dinner, as a way to open up the dance floor for the evening. I'm basically planning to spend the rest of the night on the dance floor, dancing with our various groups of friends.
Er...... if you think talking for a minute or two with your family is such a huge annoyance, then I don't think you should be inviting them. Seriously? Eating in another room to get away from them? Wtf, they're not some muddy dog that might beg for food. You can't be real.
That wasn't the OP. Someone else was thinking about doing that but then realized how it sounded when others commented.
Er...... if you think talking for a minute or two with your family is such a huge annoyance, then I don't think you should be inviting them. Seriously? Eating in another room to get away from them? Wtf, they're not some muddy dog that might beg for food. You can't be real.
That wasn't the OP. Someone else was thinking about doing that but then realized how it sounded when others commented.
If you don't want to have your dinner and dancing interrupted, then don't invite any guest to your wedding. Problem solved!
As soon as you invite guests it stops being about just you and FI starts being about guests too! And that should make you HAPPY, not annoyed. The point of inviting guests is to celebrate WITH them, not adjacent to them whilst lost in your own bubble of rudeness.
FWIW FI and I can't wait to eat dinner with our bridal party and their SO's and then dance the night away with our family and friends.
Table visits FTW. I don't like receiving lines, and lucky for me I don't think our venue will fit them anyway. We're also doing a Sweetheart table, with the goal of making it a little bubble area where we can sit and (hopefully) guests will not come up and interrupt our few bites of food.
Um the thing I'm excited for the most about my reception is seeing my favorite people in one room together. Of course I'm going to make an effort to talk to every single one of them!!! I'm definitely doing table visits--my wedding will be on the large side (thank you, Irish Catholic family!!), so a receiving line would be cumbersome. But I've been in enough weddings to figure out how to do it: bride & groom get each course served first, eat, go to a few tables, come back for second course, go to a few more tables, repeat until the meal is done. This isn't even on my list of things to worry about for the wedding, because I actually WANT to see all my guests!
I hate how everyone spends their entire reception having to make a conversation with every single guest. Brides and grooms don't hardly get to eat or dance at their own wedding! I know most people feel that is a necessary evil of weddings but I feel like there MUST be some polite way to announce that you would like to enjoy dancing and eating at your reception. Or even some sort of compromise. Because why should I even bother picking out music and songs and food if I won't even get to enjoy any of it?! Its not that i dont want to thank everyone for coming and for spending time and money on us! I am thankful! But cant we just say congrats and move on?! Anybody have a good way to try to enjoy the thousands of dollars being spent on your wedding?
We spent 10's thousands and still enjoyed our wedding. We ate dinner, had a few cocktails, talked to all the guests and were on the dance floor a lot of the evening. We even had 145 people. My sister had 267 at her wedding and she ate (I sat next to her to know). She was also tearing up the dance floor.
Actually I've never been to a wedding where they couple didn't eat and were not on the dance floor. Most weddings I attend are in the hundreds. ::shrugs::
The only thing I missed was the sushi station and the raw bar during the cocktail hour. I heard it was really good. Oh well.
If you really don't want to spend the time, then don't invite the guests. Seriously, there is no excuse not to spend time with your guests.
What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests. Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated.
One way to be sure you get to eat and have some time together is to have a sweetheart table.
I'm not really sure why. I've seen dozens and dozens of sweetheart tables and that has rarely been the case. Some guests have no problem going right up to the couple while they're eating and start chatting to the couple.
One venue my friend was considering offered to whisk the couple away after the ceremony to a private room so they can have a moment to catch their breath. They would be served food and drinks while the guests were shown into the cocktail hour.
OP, I understand what you're saying. It can be very overwhelming with all those people and everything happening. The thing is, they ARE your guests. Mingling, conversation, and all that will be expected of you. You'll have to proactively make sure you take time to talk to all your guests, but still find time to hit the dance floor. If you seek guests out, then it'll be on your terms, on your time. Less chance of them finding you when you're preoccupied.
The bolded is what FI and I are planning on doing -- heading to a private room right after the ceremony to have some alone time and eat dinner together. That way, we can do table visits while the guests are eating dinner, and we'll be free to mingle and dance as we see fit for the rest of the night.
You aren't eating in the same room as your guests?
Yikes, when you put it that way, it sounds super snooty. That's totally not what I'm going for! We haven't decided for certain yet, we might just have them bring us a plate of cocktail hour appetizers. I'm just a little concerned that if we don't eat then, we're going to be pulled in so many different directions once we join the party that we won't end up sitting down to eat during dinner.
At my sister's wedding after the pictures we joined the other guests at the reception. They had some appetizers for the WP (including the B&G) in a small room. We all just freshened up, grabbed a cocktail and waited to be announced. ETA - my sister also had some beer and snacks on the trolly from the church to the reception venue.
Our wedding was to be on a beach. The reception in a tent a short walk away. After the ceremony servers were to bring down pre-ordered cocktails and some appetizers to the us and the WP while we did pictures. There was a storm, so no pictures and the WP just ate with the other guests. But that was our plan.
What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests. Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated.
Re: Question about reception etiquette!!!
Oh thank god. That is just too too much.
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