Day of Timeline

I do not think your reception is too long. Our reception was 6-11. Guests arrive 4, ceremony 4:30-5, cocktail hour 5-6. We had dinner first and by 7:30 it was just open dancing for 3.5 hours. You’ll be having dinner thrown in there, which will break it up as well. I think your timing is fine!

5 hours is fine

5 hours is standard for a reception (1 hour for cocktail hour, 4 for dinner and dancing). Ours will be 5.5 hours.

Follwing becuase I am an October Bride with my ceremony starting at 2:30pm! haha and I was certainly planning on a roughly 5 hour reception. Not sure if you have different venues for Ceremony and Reception but I would make sure to include some buffer travel time. For example, my venues are about 20 min away so I am making my Cocktail hour timeline a bit longer, the ceremony ending at 3pm and then having the cocktail hour from 3:30-4:45ish. At least for me, I know my cocktail hour will not actually start the second my ceremony ends.

As long as you space out your "events" so like entrance, toasts, dinner, dances, cake cutting, etc I don't think it will feel too long!

Ours is longer lol. 5 hours is a "normal" length. We have ceremony 4:45-5, cocktail hour 5-6, reception 6-11. DJ is there from 4:30-11 and photographer from 1-11.

October bride as well. It seems we are all on the same time line. Our ceremony is 5-5:30, cocktail hour from 5:30 - 6:30, reception starts at 6:30 - 11. 5 hours is definitely not too long.

I absolutely have never heard of a 5-hour reception being too long. Do you like this DJ? That seems like something a DJ should know and would make me concerned about his experience ...

5 hours is plenty. Mine is 5 hours including the cocktail hour. Would've like to have the extra hour but I am not paying for it. I think for everything you want 5 hours is fine!

This is basically what I plan on doing. Ceremony at 3. cocktail hour from 3-4. dinner served at like 430. cake at 6ish. exit at around 9 or 930. I'm still pretty far off so I don't have it nailed down yet.

I think 5 hours is pretty standard. My reception was from 6-11 p.m., with the ceremony from 3-4, and cocktail hour (90 minutes) being from 4:15-5:45.

View Quoted Comment I don't feel like he has much experience; but he DJ'ed my friends wedding in January & has good prices (cheapest so far). Fingers crossed it all works out!