Cocktail vs Dinner Receptions

Do what you can afford, if you are doing cocktails, then appetizers should be available!

appetizers and drinks!

That's what I was thinking of doing... appetizers & drinks. I was also thinking of providing a breakfast buffet the next morning. This destination planning is harder than I expected it to be...

Cocktail receptions are fine as long as you don't have it at dinner time. Good luck with your planning!

The ceremony is at 4 pm & we have 1hr afterwards for photography... which should be completed no later then 5:30.

Will your reception be starting at 5:30? If so, that's right at dinner time and I'd serve a meal. If you want to do a cocktail/appetizer reception I'd make it earlier or later than 5:30.

That's still meal time, so unless you can move things earlier or later, I think you'd be better having dinner.

For a DW, I think you should provide a meal. How far are your guests traveling, on average?

Back to the drawing board I go... LOL Thanks for the advice ladies!

I just checked your profile and I see you are getting married in Vegas! How exciting! I can see why you may not want to provide a full meal and I'm sure guests can find about a million places to eat but a 5:30pm reception time is a little bit more difficult to make into a cocktail reception. Can you push it back to after 7pm?

I think I'd cut the breakfast buffet to save money for the dinner. Someone suggested a "non-hosted" brunch the next day so people can know that you'll be there to hang out but they have to pay for themselves.

@Mrs. S - That's exactly how I feel but my husband wants to do the cocktail reception, that's a man for you! lol We're all from PA traveling to Vegas.

That's a long and not-so-cheap trip, so I definitely think dinner would be in order. And yeah, cut breakfast instead.

I would recommend a dinner reception. I used to be interested in a cocktail style reception but I then attended a wedding with start time at 630pm (ceremony led right into reception) where they had a cocktail style reception. They did have appis and a variety of trays of food, but it wasn't nearly enough. As soon as they starting serving food it was chaos. Clearly everyone was hungry. By the end of the evening everyone was quite drunk and I truly believe it was from a lack of food served throughout the night.

So go with dinner...

We're having a very simple dessert reception. No full meal, no dance, just cake, coffee and punch after the ceremony.

I love cocktail/appetizer or dessert receptions but for a DW, I agree with Mrs S and I would provide a meal.

It can be brunch, it doesn't have to be dinner.

If you do decide on a cocktail/appetizer reception it should be at 2pm or 8pm - on Vegas time if people are going to be up late, you could maybe adjust that to 3pm or 9pm. Probably depends on your crowd. When we've gone to Vegas, we stay up late, so we have lunch around 1 or 2 and dinner around 8 or 9.

Best reception I ever went to was at dinner time, but had "heavy hors d'oeurves" at the reception. I have never had such wonderful food (which I was told was less than a seated dinner or buffet) and left stuffed! Plus everyone was up dancing or mingling and when you sat you were always with someone different. I'm not the most outgoing person (okay, I'm shy, I'll admit it) but I had a great time talking to different people. I loved her reception so much, I'm doing my own version of it. Truly an awesome time and I can eat so when I say they had to roll me out of there, thats a lot of food. Great variety though.

I appreciate all the feedback. I guess I'm going to sit down with my husband and come up with a final decision about this! The thing is, this is a vow renewal for our 10th anniversary so we weren't really trying to do the whole "big wedding" thing all over again but we're definitely going to have to figure out exactly what to do since people are traveling for this event.

10 yrs is a big deal! You are Blessed you reached that milestone- Do what you can afford and comfortable with- Its VEGAS ANYTHING GOES

Thank you Lisa!!! :o)

Does he want to do the cocktail reception because of cost or because of the feel or variety of food? If he like the variety, you could always do something like Tapas style/family style service?