Dinner Timing

The bar needs to be open until dinner starts, because people will want to grab a fresh drink before they eat. Is there any way you can pay for an extra hour? Do the last hour on consumption? How long do you have the venue for?

@Lana This rule from your venue seems really odd - are you sure they will let you chop your four hours up like that? Definitely something to confirm if you haven't directly asked yet.

As to the timeline - is there a particular reason you need extra time before dinner since you can't have the bar open? Why not start dinner at 6:30?

I would check with the venue. My venue does open bar the whole time except for an hour and a half during dinner.

I did confirm that I can chop up the 4 hours like that - the manager at the venue actually gave me the suggestion to do the 1 hour at cocktail hour and the rest after dinner.

I was planning to set aside 1.5 hours between the ceremony and the dinner to take family and wedding party photographs, which is why there is that half hour without the open bar.

Maybe if we take some more photographs before the ceremony, we could potentially start dinner at 6:30.

Or the manager did say I could do a consumption bar if I choose too.

We have to be out of the venue at 2pm at the absolute latest so I figured we could wrap things up at 12pm and leave a cushion for cleanup time.

Hmm... I agree with your BoudreauToBe. Maybe if I choose to keep dinner at 7pm, I will allocate the open bar to the full 5:30-7pm and the pay for a consumption bar near the end of the night. Not sure when people will drink the most/least.

I think having the bar close during cocktail hour is not a good idea- as a guest I would be really confused if I went up to get a drink before dinner and was turned down. I would say do an hour during cocktail hour and the rest during and after dinner.

What kind of meal are you serving? Basically you need to know when dinner ends.

So say 1 hr for cocktail and then 3 hrs post-dinner for dancing etc.

Buffets are faster but mine was plated dinner and took about 2.5-3hrs from sit down, order to finish eating 4 courses.

You can have the bar closed during meal service. We do this a lot and when this is the case they will have wine service throughout dinner. You could start back up the open bar at 8:30 when meal service is over. It is not unusual for the bar to close thirty prior to the end of the reception.

I always suggest plated meals. For us where I work they are so much faster. A buffet can take about a hour. I worked last night and they had a buffet. Their meal service started at around 7:30 and they were finishing up at 8:30. They had two hours for dancing......so if you want lots of dancing I would do a plated.

Unless you have a really big family, I don't think that your pictures will take 90 minutes.

Our meal is a 3 course plated meal. They fill out their meal selection during the RSVP process so I won't need to budget time for the ordering process. Hmm so won't be as long VC's 2.5-3 hour dinner. But from the sounds of I'mthemom, it might be less than an hour?

I could probably get away with an hour of photos between ceremony and reception - I guess I just need to be very careful about not mingling too much right after the ceremony.

My venue would open the bar for 5 hours only, but wouldn't serve during the last half-hour's "sober-up time." Our dinner last for hours, since it was 4-plated courses; but in our region/social circle, we have open dancing, between each course.