Need some advice about Cocktail hour!

Re: Need some advice about Cocktail hour!

• banana468 member

  

  February 2022

  My advice:
  -You'll need a chair for every person at both your cocktail hour and rest of reception
  -Have the cocktail hour inside with access to outside if desired.  People don't often stay seated unless limited seating is present and then no one can find a seat. 
  
  Regarding the food, I think your best bet is to find a way to serve it so that there's minimal way to spread germs from person to person.  Ideally that involves servers handing bowls of the dips to the guests rather than communal bowls.  

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• ei34 member

  

  February 2022

  knottie1ea2b589ba8191ed said:

  Hi everyone. I am getting married in September and I am completely new to event planning. My budget is only $5000 so I’m doing a lot of diy. We are planning to do a taco bar reception, but I’m still trying to decide how we are going to do cocktail hour. Ok to give ya’ll an idea, we are doing our ceremony outside and then the reception indoors…so I’m thinking it’d be best to do our cocktail hour outside. Since we are doing tacos I like the idea of doing chips and maybe have a salsa bar and also offer queso and guacamole, but I need advice on how to set it up. My venue only offers reception tables and chairs which will be inside where the reception is going to be held but I want to offer some seating during my cocktail hour that’ll be outside. Is it a good idea to move some reception tables outside? I was considering renting some pub style tables but I’m expecting 80 or so people which means I’d need a lot of tables which adds up quick. My idea is to serve the tortilla chips in individual baskets and to have all the salsas/dips out on a table with plastic dip bowls that guests can fill themselves. If anyone has done a similar setup I would really appreciate any advice! Also, I was thinking about doing a margarita bar and maybe I can have my bartender already have glasses ready so when my guests transition from the ceremony to cocktail hour they won’t have to wait in line to get their first margarita. 
  

  
  

  
  If the weather is nice I could see an outdoor cocktail hour being fun.  You do need a seat for every butt though, for both cocktails and reception.  I like the idea of the bartender having margaritas ready for guests, grab&go style, to eliminate waiting.  If you envision frozen margaritas make sure the bartender has a way to keep them from separating if they're to be made in advance.  (On the rocks you don't have to worry about that.)
  
  Taco bar sounds fun, especially all of the dips.  When budgeting just keep in mind that food isn't a place to diy.  Hire a professional caterer (or purchase food from a good restaurant and hire wait staff who will be able to keep the food warm/cool, serve it, clean up).  Self-serve buffet style always made me nervous about germs but more so in pandemic times.  So a caterer and wait staff are definitely areas to allocate budget.  

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• maine7mob member

  

  February 2022

  Is the reason for the cocktail hour to give your guests something to do while you take bridal party pictures? Otherwise, I'd skip it and go straight to the reception. Your budget will go further that way. You can do pics before the ceremony.

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• bubblylove member

  

  March 2022

  Yeah I see no reason for the cocktail hour most of the time. The last wedding I went to there was no seating for cocktail hour. There were three (tight) rooms in this old mansion that we all floated around chatting. Which was fine. But meanwhile upstairs is this big beautiful ballroom we all could have been in while they took pictures and it would have been much more comfortable. 

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