How long is the "party portion" of your reception?

Depending on your guest count & number of servers you may not need 1.5 hours for dinner. If you were to have dinner in the same place as dessert and dancing people would feel free to get up and start the party whenever they finished, if that is an option. Alternatively do as many pics as you can before hand and cut cocktail hour to 30 min.

@Elyse... I think our reception starts about 730 ish so minus an hr for dinner that only leaves 3 hours to party I think... I have to look into my timeline.

@Emmy thats a good idea, did you do that?

Reception starts @ 6:30p until 10:30p.

I'm having that issue with my venue, 6-1030 total time. But they want $1000 for an extra half hour. No way I'm paying $2000 to extend another hour. Everyone will just have to be satisfied with 1.5-2 hours of dancing. I'm would like to keep the dinner portion to 1 hour.

Yea, we only had extended family photos to do between our ceremony and reception (we did have the hour for cocktail hour, but we could have done 1/2) and our dinner place was our party place, people were up and celebrating really quickly

I haven't finalized anything yet, but this is what I'm thinking:

Ceremony 3:30-4:15 (FH's grandfather is officiating and we'll have the whole shebang with readers and singers, so we're planning on 45 min)

Cocktail hour ~4:20-~5:20 (same venue but people will have about a 5 min walk to cocktail hour space)

Reception start ~5:25 (same deal with venue-- different space so people will need to walk a little)

Bridal party introduction/dances- 5:45

Dinner 6-7ish

Dessert/dancing etc. 7-10

That seems like a lot of time for dinner. Our dancing part will begin around 9- 9:30 and we have until midnight

Valarie, you don't count because your whole weekend is a party lol!

Good point, Emmy. I was thinking the dinner was probably long. The guest list is up to about 120 and it's a seated dinner, so maybe that will cut down on that time. We are doing a first look so that definitely gives us options.

Alicia, that's a lot! My space is only $500/hr rental plus the bar tab.

My cocktail hour is 6:00-7:00, dinner 7:00-8:30 (but I have a large group). We have the room until midnight, so that gives me 3 1/2 hours for the partying. That sounds ridiculously long to me but all of my family weddings go that late. We're having pizza served at about 10:45.

I agree the dinner time seems long. Our reception starts at 3, food will be served probably around 3:30 and we have the venue until 9. We haven't figured out anything more specific than that.

Our reception starts at 6 and goes until 1 a.m. (typical for Manitoban wedding). The formal part will be done around 8:30 and then it's party time!

@lori, my family and friends are like that too, our reception from cocktail hour to end was 5:30-12...then most of us closed down the bar next door.

General consensus would be that it's short then! We can definitely do an afterparty because our venue is located in the city with plenty of bars. I know everyone says the time flies on the day, but it just seems like it's such a small time frame for all that is going into this.

How long do you allow for 40 people to be served sit down dinner, with salad first, and the cake cutting eating, and a speech from a long winded ffil lol?

1.5-2 hours

Make sure you tell everyone a plan for an after party, Elyse. The last wedding I went to- there was no plan- just that "we'd all meet up after." Everyone scattered- and most ended up just going back to the hotel because there was no clear plan.

We are doing this as well. We have our venue until 12.. but there is a noise ordinance downtown that means the DJ will have to move inside after 11 or just cut it down really low. We only have 4 hours of unliimited wine and beer for our guests- so we're starting our ceremony late to avoid having to extend the drinking hours.

Yeah the dinner is long on your schedule. This is my time line

3:30-4 ceremony

4-5 cocktail hour

5-6 dinner (could run a little over being its 150 people and buffet)

6-10 reception

I guess four hours is kind of long but that time includes all the things you do (first dance, other dances, bouquet toss, etc.) So you can knock off around a hour to all of that so about 3 hours of just having fun drinking and dancing.

The way i see it if I am spending all this time and money planning this whole thing, I want it to be as long as possible. Plus most of my guest I think will be having fun and not want it to end (especially my younger friends, we drink till 3 in the morning sometimes) lol.

Reception starts at 6pm - Dancing will probably be 1.5-2 hours. Our timeline isn't complete yet.

I have my venue till 10pm due to city regulations. There will be dancing mix in throughout the night so everyone will get time to have fun but dinner/speeches are suppose to end around 7:30 and cake cutting is at 9pm with only dancing after that. I think it depends on the age of your crowd with how long the party will last. A lot of weddings I have been to recently, everyone has wanted to leave around 10pm or so and then break off on their own whether that be to a bar or back to hotel.

That looks very similar to my timeline, but I have dinner to be a bit shorter.