How long is/was your Reception???

Our reception will be from 5:30-11pm

Unless your venue charges you by the hour, there's no reason to cut the reception short. I've seen parties go until midnight and 1 am. Especially if people are coming from out of town, they may be in a vacation mode and want to stay out later. Just clean up when you're planning, or when most guests have left whichever comes first.

We're having a sunday wedding- reception starts at 6 pm and we have the hall until 1 am. Realistically I know most of my guests will be gone by 11 pm at the latest, but it doesn't matter much to my venue. She may be saying this as a way to let you know her hours won't include breakdown then?

We have our venue (ceremony and reception in the same space) from 6 till midnight ... planning to stay and drink the whole time

@Maria, we have her for 10 hours! So she will be there the same amount of time as we have venue for. I think she was saying it cause some vendors timelines aren't nearly as long, however we've had pretty good success finding vendors at decent prices for a good amount of time. It just threw me off a bit, cause she knows it's a DW. Our family would party till the crack of dawn if they could!

Our reception is 7:30-11:30 p.m., cocktail hour 6:30-7:30.

@Hannah, then it's not too long! As long as you're also aware of your vendor's hours (ex DJ for x hours, photography for x hours) it's fine. Also, if she's doing any set up before that will be part of her 10 hours so it's not when the wedding starts her clock starts. Just something to keep in mind.

My reception starts at 3pm for the cocktail hour and will go on until 9pm. I felt like I was having a short reception lol. My cousin's wedding I recently went to had a reception from 3:30pm-12am and by about 8pm or so, there were only a handful of us left.

I wish ours could go till 12pm! We spend so much money and put so much work into our day that I want to enjoy every last minute of it and make it last as long as I can! Everyone needs to be out by 11pm. It starts at 5.

Our reception started at 7:05 and we had to basically push people out because there were so many lingerers. I don't think that is obscenely long but if you have last call at 10:45-11 most people will shuffle out by 11:30

7-7:30 ceremony

7:30-8:30 cocktail hour

8:30-12:30 reception

12:30-1:30 after party (Separate room of venue)

My reception is scheduled for 7-11 but I'm not 100% if it's going to stay like that or be moved to 6:30-10:30 but it's 4 hours.

4:30-5:30 Ceremony

5:30-6:30 Cocktail hour

6:30-11:30 reception

Our cocktail hour was 5-6 and reception 6-10. I honestly wish we had 1 more hour. It flew by! With that said, it would have been pretty expensive for us to add an hour so I don't totally regret our time frame but I just wish I had a little more time to enjoy everything. I do think 4 hours is pretty standard reception timeframe.

Edit: A couple people did leave early but the dance floor was still full until the end, a solid number of people were still there. Enough people that I wished we had 1 more hour with them lol

Our reception was 6-11 (including cocktail hour) and we extended the reception 11-12 for late night s'mores fire pit on the venues beach.

Our ceremony was at 5, cocktail hour 530-630, reception went until 12. We actually paid to extend it an hour because I thought 11 was too early and I'm so happy we did.

5-6 hours (including cocktail hour) is pretty standard where I'm from. Ours will be the pretty much the same timeline as yours.

I don't think it's to long, especially if people will be staying over, they won't be in a rush home.

@Hannah P, we have the same start time as you for ceremony and cocktail hour.

Our reception is 7:30-11, with the bar closing at 10:30. Afterwards, we were planning to go to a nearby tavern for those who wanted to keep the party going.

We will have 6 hours from the start of the ceremony until the end of the of night so 4 pm-10 pm. The ceremony will only be 15-20 min. The venue an dj only give 5 hours so we extended both of them an hour.

Our reception is 5 hours and is suppose to run

5-5:30 - Ceremony

5:30-6;30 - Cocktail hour

6:30 - 10:30 - Dinner/Dancing/Merryment

10:30- ? - We must leave the ball room but the coordinator said we can always go to the onsite bar which is open until 1 or 2am if we want!