Appetizer hour: how long?

It's called cocktail "hour" for a reason...


During cocktail hour, guests will expect you to be away for photos. That's also the time spent to flip the room from ceremony space to reception

View Quoted Comment I forgot to mention, the ceremony & reception are being held at the same venue, the ceremony is outside, and the reception inside. But that was my thought too, if I have the timeline written for everyone to see, and they should know that we’re taking pictures, they should be pretty understanding and be able to wait an hour for dinner

It's cocktail hour. Have appetizers and drinks for an hour, or more if you're not done with photos. No one is going to leave.

Your dad is wrong and you're not crazy. I don't know where he got that notion from. I think ours was almost 1.5 hours but that's not exactly uncommon either. You'll be fine whether or not your timeline is on a sign for everyone to see. Everyone will be enjoying themselves and not even thinking about dinner. Hence why you have appetizers during the hour, to sustain them until then. You'll be fine.

Most people have an hour between ceremony and reception reserved for cocktails/appetizers while family photos are taken. Plus, your dinner is being served very early at 4:45 so you have nothing to worry about.

You're not crazy. As long as you're serving some type of food your guests will be fine

So my day of coordinator told me the same thing that It should be less than an hour or guest will leave. I still added the hour to my timeline guest won’t leave it’s a time to mingle and have appetizers

Your dad’s wrong. You’re not crazy. If he keeps arguing, tell him the venue does weddings as their JOB and this is what they do.

Your not crazy. It should be an hour. I am having everything at the same location as well, I have a fairly large space to work with so I am have my ceremony space upstairs on the balcony and splitting the main room in 2, cocktail hour guests can mingle downstairs near the bar and upstairs on the balcony then after the hour is up the guests will be allowed to find their tables/seats. That gives us a small buffer for our picture taking in case we run over a little.

You are not crazy...

I wouldn't expect people to leave. They know you're getting pictures done. Frankly, I find 4:45 to be *extremely* early for dinner (full disclosure we don't normally eat until 7 or 7:30), so I think you're good - and I don't really think you need to include a written timeline.

Dad is saying that because in many regions/circles, a cocktail hour before dinner is a new concept in the last 5-10 years. When he got married, that was not a thing except with the ultra rich extravagant people hosting weddings. Up until recently, the reception started without appetizers (unless the menu was appetizers only) before whatever the main food presentation was. The current way of doing things is to have a cocktail hour for 60 minutes (that is called an hour in most places) before dinner to transition to the main reception.


Not everyone takes formal pictures away from guests because pre-ceremony pictures are becoming the norm, so it gives the couple a chance to quickly greet all their guests that they may not be able to otherwise. It’s nowhere near as long as table visits which can easily take more than an hour by themselves and cut into dancing time which is already short to begin with.

An hour for cocktails is fine, as long as you're serving food and drinks.

Depending on the size of your group, it will take an hour for everyone to get a drink, a snack, use the restroom, smoke, whatever their thing is. 20 minutes is not enough time.

Your timeline is very common and your guests are not going to be confused or upset. There are varying regional customs for wedding activities of course, but cocktail hours have been the norm in many places for more than 20 years in my experience.

I would just stop discussing this with your dad. Change the subject every time he brings it up. He doesn't need to agree with all of your decisions.

Hour is fine. Someone I just consulted with told us to have TWO hours bc wedding reception starts at 4p (5 is too early for dinner she thought and we have a live band playing before the DJ...also our photographer is only staying until 6p, we will cut the cake around 5). Our reception is at least 6 hours, potentially all night.