Entertaining guest during reception

Our time line is
530-6 ceremony
6-7 cocktail hour
7-8 dinner
8-11 reception.
We have a DJ and a photo booth that's all we are doing

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Thank you Alexa for sharing your timeline. I was wondering, have you prepared any dance performances for reception? If yes, how many. My anxiety is that I don't want my guests to be bored during the reception and dinner.

We dont gave any choreographed dances
But we are doing our first dance
Father daughter dance
And mother and groom dance.
Dont worry nobody is going to be bored.
Just have a good DJ and music and you will be all set!

Our reception went from 5:30-10:30pm. Aside from dinner and toasts, the main activity was just socializing and dancing. Our venue had a huge screened porch with comfy furniture and a fireplace, so we had a fire going for people who wanted to get away from some of the noise and the crowd. Our DJ included the Shoe Game which people seemed to get a kick out of, as well as a drinking game towards the end of the night.

For our DW (15 guests):
4:00-4:30 ceremony
4:30-5:00 photos of all
5:00:00-6:30 cocktail hour
6:30 dinner
8:00 dessert
We had a strolling accordionist for cocktail hour & background music for dinner. Didn’t need dancing. Plenty of drinking, eating & socializing.

We have 45 guests including ourselves for a five-hour reception (6-11pm). We have a DJ (whose set-up includes karaoke), guestbook jenga, and a "photobooth" (not a booth, but a camera and a box of costumes). That plus an open bar should be plenty to keep our guests entertained. Oh, and we'll also have lawn games after the ceremony!

I had 40 guests. Our timeline was as follows:

4:15 - 5:45 cocktail hour

5:45 - 6 dinner announced, guests are seated

6 - 7:30 plated dinner served

6:05 bride gives welcome toast on behalf of bride and groom

7:30 bridesmaid gives toast on behalf of wedding party

7:45 cake cutting

7:55 first dance, bandleader invites everyone to join after 30 seconds

8-11 dance floor opens, photo booth opens

8:30 cake served

9 s’mores served around the fire pit

10 grilled cheese sandwiches served

11 last dance, end of reception

We had a solo guitarist during cocktail hour, a 5-piece dinner band, a 9-piece big band for dancing, a photo booth, a fire pit with chairs and blankets and 2 late night snacks as well as a candy bar. Having plenty of food, an open bar and good music kept our guests entertained and happy all night.

Our rough wedding timeline is:

Ceremony - 5:00-5:30

Cocktail Hour - 5:30-6:30

Dinner - 6:30-7:30

(More) Booze and Dancing - 7:30-11:00

The entertainment will be a great DJ and alcohol. Nothing else needed for an epic dance party.

You shouldn't have to worry about entertaining your guests. As long as there is food/alcohol and music your guests will have a great time.

Our cocktail hour started at 4, and we had our entrance by 5, followed by cake cutting and dinner. We had some toasts while everyone finished up. Then we had our first dance, my father daughter dance, and opened the dance floor until 10.

There shouldn't be any need to entertain your guests, as a good DJ, food/drinks, and the people around them should be able to do that!

We had around 70 people and a pretty even breakdown between his family, my family, and friends. There were people who never met each other before who were dancing and having a good time together. people who didn't want to dance had a spot away from the dance floor to converse and most everyone stayed until 10. Our guestbook was also a polaroid camera, so people were having fun with that!

My timeline was

4:30pm Ceremony

5:00pm Cocktail Hour

6:30pm Dinner (including toasts, first dance, parent dance)

8:00pm Dancing

midnight - last dance

For entertainment, we just had an open bar, candy buffet, awesome DJ and a Photo Booth.... the dance floor was always full and I have over 500 Photo Booth strips. I don't think anyone was bored at all - and probably over half our 185 guests were still there when the lights came on at midnight. I think with great food, alcohol and music, people can entertain themselves.

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Curious to know more about this 'drinking game' towards the end of the night
About how many guests did you have as well?

View Quoted Comment We had 100 guests.
The drinking game was basically Waterfall, if you've ever heard of that. Essentially, all interested guests grabbed a drink and made a huge circle on the dancefloor. I think about 40 of our guests played. The DJ played a song that had the same phrase/word repeated a lot (in our case the song was "Thunder"). One person drank at a time-- first person started drinking when they hear the word "thunder" in the song and had to keep drinking until the word came up again, at which point the next person started drinking. If you finished your drink before the word came up again, the person next to you took over. Granny ended up having to chug her whole glass of wine 😂

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and experiences. I have only 30-35 guests, including myself and the groom and our family members and most of them don't know each other? I am terrified there will some awkward silences and no one will get up to dance? Any thoughts?

View Quoted Comment Our 40 guests comprised of different groups that didn't know each other. I think it helped that we had a welcome dinner the night before to help them loosen up and relax. Then I carefully assigned seats so that I sat the groups together but placed people I knew who were really social in each group at the end of their group so they acted as a liaison between their respective groups. I had long tables end to end so this worked really well. The band did a great job of playing a variety of swing, oldies, Motown and funk which everyone loved and they enjoyed the top shelf open bar all night. By the end of the night there were no strangers. The next morning at our farewell brunch people were even exchanging numbers. I think it helped too that most of these people had come to our couple's shower hosted by the bridal party a couple months earlier.