Wedding Central Forum

Stupidly having a little panicked moment about this - not sure why, but there it is...hoping the WC girls can help out...

How long was/will your reception be? Our ceremony is 3pm, we'll have dinner around 6pm and the band will start at 9pm and go through till 1am. Even though this was the sort of timing we'd always wanted, we did have a panic this week that we could only have the venue till 11pm. Which totally disappointed us. But now we've arranged to have it later again, I'm worried it's going to be too late. What's wrong with me??!!!

What's everyone else doing? And if you've already had your big day, what did you do and did it work? Or has anyone been to a wedding where the reception was too long/too short? Help please!!!! Thank you

1am is very late - but maybe you have family/friends that will party till that late??
We are having ours till midnight, we are leaving at 1130, canapes start at 5pm ceremony at 6pm.

Its better to have it later than too early - plus you wont stay till 1am will you??? Cause then you dont have to worry at all hehe

Dont panic - it will be fine!!

I personally think that 1am is a little late maybe finish at 12 ... we were supposed to leave ours around 11-1130 but we ended up being there till about 12 and that was enough

Our ceremony will start at 5pm, reception 6:30, Dinner 7 and finish at around 11-11:30ish. Theres actually a bar/nightclub downstairs so those that want to keep partying can head there afterwards

we had ceremony at 3pm, left at about 12:30am

Ours was:
Ceremony: 3 - 4pm
Reception: 5:30 - 11:30pm (Dad wanted to extend the standard 5hr package by an hour, he didn't think it was long enough).

DH and I left our reception at midnight.

We had our ceremony at 3p.m.
Our reception went from 5:30 - 10 p.m. Four and a half hours in total, and by the end of it, I was soooooooo ready to be alone with FH. We left at 9:45.

I honestly think 1a.m. finish time is very late, especially since the day is so long and big for those in the bridal party with early starts etc, so you may be very exhausted before that time. Even though our reception finished fairly early, we still had guests leaving quite early, from around 8:30 onwards.

I think it depends on the sorts of people you have at your wedding though. If you've got a lot of younger people, they'd be more likely to stay until the 1 a.m. finish, but then you might have an older generation who want to be home early or have committments for the following morning so will have to leave early. I guess it's best to weigh up the pros and cons for each option?

Thanks heaps for the all the feedback - it's great to get different persepctives

About 70% of our guests will be coming from overseas and we feel like we wanted to put on a good bash for everyone. Most of our friends and family like to have a drink and a dance... but I'm still in two minds about it all. I think in a way we just want to make the day last as long as possible but at the same time we don't want people to get bored!

Will have to have a think - maybe we will compromise and go till midnight.

ours is
ceremony-3pm
reception-6:30pm
reception ends:12:00am
I wanted it to finish at 1am as alot lot of the guests are young and me and df like to party lol but the wont extend for us, i think your time will be fine

Miss2Mrs wrote:

1am is very late - but maybe you have family/friends that will party till that late??
We are having ours till midnight, we are leaving at 1130, canapes start at 5pm ceremony at 6pm.

Its better to have it later than too early - plus you wont stay till 1am will you??? Cause then you dont have to worry at all hehe

Dont panic - it will be fine!!

I am the same as miss2mrs .. my mum and dad r going to be paying for the extra hour so we can all party till 12 and then head to the hotel .. im sure by then I will be absolutely pooped !

We had:
230pm ceremony
5pm cocktail hour
6pm reception started with main meal served almost straight away (we made our entrance straight away and only had a small guest list so didnt take long for them to be seated).
The reception was suppose to finish at 10pm but it kept going until 11pm. We didnt leave because it was at a resort where we were staying. All the guests stayed til just before 11pm and a few friends stayed around with us after that before we headed off alone to our room about 1230pm.
We had music played to dance to as soon as the main meal was finished so at about 730/745pm the dancing started (had dinner, speeches, first dance). So that gave our guests and us plenty of time to dance and mingle. It was the perfect amount of time.

Ive been to a lot of weddings where 10/1030pm is the usual end time and of course it goes a little longer after all the venue isnt going to be watching the clock and push you all out right on the cut off time. If youve extended the time with the venue above their usual cut off time til around 1130 midnight that would be perfect. I doubt your guests will get bored and if they do then they will just leave early. After all you said yourself you want to extend the day as much as possible and ur guests are likely to drink and dance til late anyway so go for it. If u can afford the extra costs to have a longer reception then do it.

Thank you all

It must have been on my mind last night as I dreamed about the reception. That's what I get before WCing before bed! lol!

So, I SMSd my Mum this morning to see what she thought. Bless her, she said "Party Mood!We are coming a long way! Hang on to the best day of your life and make it last!". Which made me a little teary actually! Gotta love mums! Although, if I'd told her it would go till 3am, she'd have said the same thing, so probably not a huge help!

Also SMSd my bestie too (who will hopefulyl be MOH if she can make it over). Was MOH at her wedding last year and had such a blast I have no idea what time things happened at. Her timing was exactly the same - 3pm - 1am and it absolutely whizzed past. I guess I'm biased though - might have felt different for the other guests.

The deliberation continues..!

Our ceremony was at 5pm. Canapes were served once the group photos were done. Reception started at 7.15 when we were announced.

We left at 11.15pm and glad to get out of there as it was an extremly long day and I was very tired!

Edit: We were the first to leave our recepetion

Our ceremony was 4pm, pre dinner drinks 6pm and reception 7pm. We finished up at midnight.

How sweet of your Mum! 1am seems like it would seem late for some guests but if you don't mind people leaving early then definitely kick on! If you think you will be upset at the thought of lots of ppl leaving early (it's possible some ppl will leave early regardless of finish time) then I think midnight is a great compromise.

Our ceremony is 4:30 - 5.

The reception is going from 6 - 1am.

My family like to party so we said 1pm. Guests can leave whenever, we're not having a leaving anything and we want to make the most of the party.

Hi!
Ours will be:
Ceremony- mid morning (10 or 11am)
Reception at midday until 4 ish
Then we r heading down to the beach for sunset cocktails until whenever i think lol

Maybe you could let people know earlier on that you plan to party on. Most guests will try to follow the tradition of waiting until the bride and groom leave before they can make tracks - so maybe you could quietly let those people who you are worried about that you don't plan on leaving early and that they shouldn't feel like they had to stay.

I was at a wedding once where the couple planned to stay til the very end....but failed to tell everyone! Me, and lots of others, sat around for hours just wanting to go home!!! I think it depends on your guests....

natblack wrote:

Our ceremony is 4:30 - 5.

The reception is going from 6 - 1am.

My family like to party so we said 1pm. Guests can leave whenever, we're not having a leaving anything and we want to make the most of the party.

Hey Natblack! We're not having a farewell either - we're exactly the same and want to make the most of the party. We were really impressed with our band's credentials and want to stick around to enjoy them! We'll probably just hop on the coach with the other guests back into the city and stay the night in a hotel (TBC!). It seems a bit unceremonious but we're not really for all the formalities (other than in the ceremony) and we'd like the rest of the day to be fairly relaxed.

Alley85 wrote:

Hi!
Ours will be:
Ceremony- mid morning (10 or 11am)
Reception at midday until 4 ish
Then we r heading down to the beach for sunset cocktails until whenever i think lol

Oh, sunset cocktails on the beach - how perfect! Your guests will love that!