Four hour reception????

That sounds SUPER rushed to me....

Our time starting from Ceremony through reception is 5:00pm - 10:30pm. A $1,000 is a lot though for one hour. Maybe you could negotiate or just add 30min for $500.

FH and I are doing a 4 hour reception because we get the banquet hall for 4 hours with our food purchase. We are also doing a daytime wedding since it's cheaper. So our reception is 12-4. But to rent for additional hours is $700 per hour! We are not doing a formal cocktail hour. Everyone will have to wait at most 30mins for us to be announced into the reception if not sooner. We figure they can busy themselves mingling and signing the guestbook, finding their seats, and I'm sure the venue will serve them drinks (no alcohol - not doing a bar). We plan to take most of the pics before the wedding. I will be meeting with my day of coordinator to go over whatever timeline she has prepared for me.

4 hours is pretty rushed if you think it will take an hour to get done with pictures AND your family/friends like to dance. A grand is pretty steep for an extra hour, though. Yikes.

It does sound rushed, but $1000 is a lot of money too. Is that the total cost for the extra hour? The venue may charge for use of the place for the extra hour. The DJ/band and any other form of entertainment you are having most likely will charge too. If you are having an open bar, you are often charged per hour. So if you haven't already, make sure you check with ALL your vendors on extra charges. With that said, the extra hour sounds nice if it is affordable for not only your guests but for you and your FS too. You guys are going to be so busy that the extra hour may give you two some time to relax and enjoy your own reception.

I total Ceremony and Reception is 6 Hours but thats because we got a great deal with the DJ and we can have the bar upto 6 Hours. $1000 is alot of money for just an extra Hour. I know we are having people come back to our house for a bonfire after the reception. Maybe you can do something with your guests after the reception.

Yes, that's what I was afraid of. I have to talk to FH about paying the extra hour.

Negotiate and have them give you one hour in $500..

That's definitely not enough time and your guests will feel rushed, especially if they are having a good time...

Before paying anything, get a minute by minute accounting of the night, so that you can be on schedule. Then, see what you are gaining for that hour. Maybe the cocktail hour can be held someplace else, like the ceremony location or in another area of the venue for less...Try finessing everything you can first, as adding an hour to the venue also adds an hour to the rest of the hourly vendors (photog, DJ, caterer, etc).

@DannieKay There's no way you can skip the cocktail hour or make it much much shorter like I'm doing and do most of your pics before the wedding? I understand if you don't want to see each other before the ceremony though. I wish we could do it that way but we just weren't willing to spend the extra money to make something like that happen.

It's on a Sunday?

Are the guests driving from far away?

Do they have kids?

Are they elderly?

Do your friends generally stay and party the night away or does the family dine and dash???????

I get married at 2 and then my reception is over by 730...so we get the room for 5 and a half hours. I would say see if you can negotiate the price because that's ridiculous...I've heard of places that are like 100 extra for each hour you go over. WOW!

@ JJ, yeah most of our guest are local although FH has a few family members coming from out of the country, and yes, there will be kids and yes a few elderly people will be attending. It depends on the mood of my family. Sometimes our parties go on into the am's and other times they dine and dash. I think paying for that extra hour will probably be beneficial.

My reception is four hours but because it's from 12-4, we aren't having a cocktail hr and pictures are in the morning prior to the ceremony. Perhaps you did need more time.

I just got married on Saturday & my dad book my reception hall from 6pm to 11pm ... The ceremony was in the same location, we started the ceremony at 6:10pm, it was over at 6:30pm, we went outside for at-most 20 minutes and did some family and b.p pictures. We were back in and eating before7pm. Everyone was done eating before 7:30 (72 guests showed up), after dinner we mingled a bit and then did our first dance, straight into the father daughter dance and then straight into the mother son dance. We did our dollar dances immediately after & then we did garter and bouquet toss, all of that was done by 8:30. We then did our toasts and cut the cake. But 9p.m. so many people had already left that we only served a 6" and 1/2 of an 8" cake. We even had free alcohol/open bar. Officially at 9:45 all of the grooms family was gone, by 10:30 all of my family was gone & we stuck around to load up our truck and clean up what wasn't already done & we were in our house by Midnight ~ (cont'd)

That gives you a frame of time at a recent reception, you may not need to add longer if you aren't having open bar.. middle of day reception might be different but we definitely thought ours would run until afternoon midnight and we were wrong, at 12:05am, we were out of our wedding attire and fixing ourselves some food because we were hungry. Good luck.. it will fly, that is for sure ~ the day was rushed from the moment we woke up. I didn't arrive at my venue until 10 minutes before start time & we started late. :-/

I'm doing 4 hours mainly because I can't afford 5 lol. We're not doing a cocktail hour, we're doing a cocktail half hour because we figure people don't want to be standing around for that long, they wanna eat!

I went to a wedding this weekend and to be honest, after 2 hours I was ready to go. That made me more comfortable with my decision to do 4 hours because I was in the same mindstate as you a couple weeks ago. Our time line will look something like this:

5:00-5:30 - Cocktails

5:35-6:00 - Introductions, first dance, father-daughter, mother-son

6:00-7:00 - Dinner, 2 speeches thrown in

7:00-7:15 - Cut the cake, toss bouquet, toss garter (may cut)

7:15-7:30 - Let them eat cake!

7:30-9:00 - Party hard

I think an hour and a half is more than enough time for everybody to dance and have a good time. We might do like an after party too and go to a local bar or club with some of the younger folks :-)

Actually now that I think about it, a lot of people leave after the cake is cut and the bouquet is thrown so I might bump that down a bit. :-)

Depends on how much your guests like dancing. More often than not, 4 hours works, but you will need a point person/DOC to make sure things move along as they should.

@oorahNik - don't forget the round of dances (first dance, father daughter, mother son...)

We're doing a reception from 7-10. I am pushing to skip a lot of the 'performance' stuff, like long toasts, bouquet/garter, and dances. Because, well, they're really boring for a lot of people, and I don't especially care. I want people to eat and mingle, not stand around staring at me!

After the reception, we're going bar-hopping in our finery, then to an after-party at the hotel.