First Look and Cocktail Hour

We are doing the first look and no cocktail hour. The plan is to roll right into the reception. Drinks will be available from the start of the 6p on, with our ceremony being at 6p. Take a few minutes after the ceremony concludes to be with FH allowing the guests to get to their seats before you make your grand entrance. There will be plenty of time for them to find their seats and get a drink without having a full blown cocktail hour.

If you and your photographer are absolutely certain you don't want any pictures post ceremony, you don't need a cocktail hour.

Regarding the dances, you can either enter and go into your first dance or enter and sit down an eat and then dance. Either way is fine.

We are doing a first look and cocktail hour. We are only spending about an hour to do first look and group photos so going to use the beginning part of cocktail hour to finish up the rest of pics. Then we want to join cocktail hour with everyone and mingle for a bit.

We did a first look, but we still did a cocktail hour. Prior to the ceremony we did the first look, bride & groom pictures and bridal party pictures. We saved family pictures for after the ceremony. It was easier to not have everyone arrive early. We also did a few more formal pictures with the bridal party and just the two of us. Then after we finished pictures, we joined our guests during the cocktail hour. That gave us time to mingle and visit with everyone. We spent about half of the hour doing pictures and the other half enjoying the cocktail hour.

Our wedding will be 5-5:30 (about), cocktail hour until 6:30 maybe 7, dinner/speaches, then dance starting after dinner about 8 for our first dance, father/daughter dance, mother/son dance. I don't think guests would expect to be served dinner right at 6.

We are doing a first look because we are not having a cocktail hour. We are just having a morning ceremony followed immediately by a brunch reception. So we are going to have to really make the most of the first look to get all of the pictures we want.

We did a first look and a cocktail hour. We got to enjoy most of the cocktail hour with our guests which was fun. But we also wanted a few pictures of us "just married" since we obviously weren't married during the first look.

Everyone here does a cocktail hour except in the morning. It's not just for pictures; it's for people to mingle and say hello, and there are always more photos to take

Thanks for the input everyone!

We're also doing both a first look and cocktail hour, more because of timing then anything else. Mass ends around 4 so a cocktail hour gives it time to be a little closer to normal dinner time before serving a full meal. I think cocktail hour is still good in your case because people will want to say hi and grab drinks before having to immediately going to their seats, even if it's not a full hour.

We're feeding first, then doing dances right after the cake cutting I think.

We are doing our first look starting at 2:30. Then we will do bridal party pics at 3:15, family pics at 3:45. Rest a little and have the ceremony at 5. 5:30 to 6:30 for cocktail hour. We are going to do a few more pics with more family at 5:30, those members that werent there for the first round. Then Dh and I will go to cocktail hour. Reception starts at 6:30, toasts and blessing and then dinner starts at 7. I would keep cocktail hour still.

Perfect!

Kathryn, yours is set up very similar to mine. We have our venue until 11 pm, but I was thinking we would need about an hour for clean up. I'm worried that we won't have as much time for the fun stuff if we still have a cocktail hour. I wonder if we could get away with clean-up in thirty minutes.

We did the first look before the ceremony. We had a 30 minute cocktail and passed hors'dourves, reception space opened at 7 pm and them we did first dances about 7:20 on which lasted about 10 minutes and then we opened the buffet for people to eat. My goal was to make my guest happy, so we gave them drinKS and food right away, we didn'take let them wait too long without eating

We're doing both. Mainly because the venue needs that hour in between to set up the room for dinner. We're doing everything in one place. Also I'm hoping during that hour our photographer will be able to grab my aunt and uncle and take pictures of them in the venue. (It will be their 50th later that year and we want gift them the pictures as an anniversary gift. Our photographer is totally up for doing this too!)

We ate doing first look and Cocktail hour. We want to enjoy the cocktail hour with friends and family

We are doing our first look at 1 pm. Our ceremony starts at 5. We are doing all bridal party pics before ceremony. Right after, we are doing pics with our family during a brief cocktail hour. I didn't want to have all of my siblings and fh's to have to show up super early then sit around twiddling their thumbs forever! Our cocktail hour will only be 20-30 mins.

I wish we were doing a first look so we didn't have to have a cocktail hour, it is not an expense we originally budgeted for. But FH really wants the first look to be walking down the aisle, so cocktail hour it is. I don't see the point in cocktail hours. We've got 5 hours of a reception to drink and mingle, why would you need another extra random hour. Most of the weddings I go to the guests just want to get to eating and dancing.

@swolemates2016 For our wedding, we thought it would be a good idea to have a cocktail hour because everything is taking place in one venue. The ceremony space is also the reception space. The venue needs time to turnover the room. By 5:30 (when ceremony ends) most people are hungry and thirsty, so we didn't want our guests to wait until 7:00-7:30 to eat.

That's really looks great to watch. Looking forward to it.

We did; first look at 3:30, followed by single shots of us, bridal party, then family. Our photographer had us take a break from 5:15-5:30 to mentally prep for the ceremony. Ceremony was 5:40-6:00. We had cocktail hour from 6-6:45ish while we took so a more photos and got to mingle then dinner. It was nice being able to enjoy the cocktail hour with my guests.