Cocktail Reception- Toasts/first Dance/cake

Your DJ, DOC or planner should be able to help you with this. I would recommend that when you are ready to enter the reception I would have the DJ announce you, do your first dance, and toast. Then about an 1-1.5 hours before the end of the party I would cut your cake. You could also do your toasts right before the cake cutting.

We did this too--we didn't have a DOC, but i built our timeline with help from our photographer and also based on some friends' experiences with similar weddings. here's what ours was:

3 PM-5 PM photos (family, WP, me and H)

5:30 ceremony

6-6:15 cocktails, passed apps (including a welcome toast from me and one other toast--we didn't do an entrance)

7:15-7:30 transition to dinner stations

8:30 parent toasts, H thanked everyone for coming

9ish cake cutting, transition to dancing (we didn't do bouq toss or spotlight dances but you could do your first dance right before or after cake cutting?)

one piece of advice i would give and which others will mention too is, make sure you have enough chairs for all your guests (even some to spare)--even with a more informal meal setup, you need to make sure that everyone has a place to sit. we had a combo of lounge furniture, large round tables, standup cruisers, and bar stools.

hope this helps!

Yes. Our venue is awesome and has a large bench section and we plan to have plenty of additional seating as well. We are looking into some furniture rentals too, to create a cool lounge space