How long will your reception last?

My ceremony is 6-630 cocktail hour/pictures 630-730 reception 730-1130/12. (We will have five hours open bar)

Will u have time for pictures? Did your officiant say it would only be ten min?

Yes. We are aiming for the world's shortest wedding ceremony (no seating of mothers, grandparents, etc and no readings or prayers). We rented a party trolley for three hours before the wedding which will take the full wedding party and immediate family to different locations around town for pictures.

My Ceremony is at 6pm, Cocktail Reception at 6:30ish, Dinner at 7:15ish, and dance ends at 11pm.

I work events for a living and for the majority of weddings I have worked, most have cleared out by 10:30pm or 11. People are tired, the wedding party is tired, and if they want to party longer, they can go to a local bar afterwards.

Ohhhh that sounds real nice! I think you should be fine then!

Thanks for the reassurance! I hadn't really given it a second thought until yesterday because our venue only offers 4 hour packages.

If you do "first look" pics, and go right into reception after ceremony, you should be ok. If you are taking pics AFTER ceremony, there would typically be a cocktail hour to cover that (6:15-7ish).

Then 7-11 would be the 4-hour reception. It really depends on the photo situation.

Ceremony starts at 6. Cocktail hour 6:30-7:30. Reception 7:30-1130

Our ceremony is 430, then right into reception. We'll be out by 11, so about 6 hours. It's a little longer than I wanted but it's what we have. Your timelines sound great!!

We're doing cocktail hour 5-6. Then the reception will be 6-8:30 or so (we're going to have speeches, 3 course meal, some time for us to get around and say hi, then cake cutting) then there will be some time for people to mingle and a dance starting at 9 that could go as late as 1. I expect some people will leave when dinner ends.

We've decided to keep the DJ for the full time, but tell him to gauge the crowd if most people are gone by 12 then we'll be done then.

Our venue gives a huge package. We would have done shorter if we had to without any problem. I had been debating officially ending the dance at 11 earlier, but just decided if we have the venue anyway why not keep it and those of us who feel like partying later can.

I love the picture idea! Since you're doing it before, you don't need that long cocktail hour for pictures, so it should be ok! You know your own guests though - my family dances until the wee hours of the morning, but not everyone's does!

6 hours! 6pm-midnight.

My venue event coordinator and I did the timeline for the day last week. Everything is onsite starting at 3, I figured we should be done by 9 she said 9:30-10. Pushing for 9, we are leaving for Key West the next morning.

Mine was from 7 to midnight all inclusive of the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception.

Our reception started at 6:45 and we ended things at 10:30. we had a lot of OOT guests that had flights the next morning so that's when a lot of people started leaving. a lot of my family and a couple friends had an after party bonfire back at the house they were renting but DH and i went back to our hotel. everyone had a blast and tired themselves out. lol.

We had our ceremony 3:30 followed by cocktail hour, dinner 5:30 and everything was closed down by 11pm. Music had to be off by 11, but most people were gone by then anyways. We were leaving at 5:30 the next morning for our honeymoon, plus the wedding was also on a Sunday so people didn't want stick around too late because of work the next day.

My ceremony started at 6 and ended at 6:20. There was a cocktail time from 6:30 to 7 and then reception from 7 to 10, which was just enough time. People will start to leave at About 3 hours.

Wow American weddings end so early! Here weddings go until at least 1am, sometimes til 2 or 3 depending on the crowd, even on a weeknight (most people get married on a weeknight here in Israel). Hope my guests that come from the US can stay late! Sounds like 10-11 is the norm, now that I think about it my cousin's wedding ended around 11:30 so I think you're fine.

Our ceremony/cocktail hour and reception are all at the same location. We are having an all inclusive wedding starting at 5pm ending at midnight.

My ceremony is at 1pm and cocktail hour starts at 4:30pm. Reception ends at 1am and we have to have everything cleaned up by 2am.

Average reception length is 4 hours! I personally love a 1 hour cocktail hour then a 4 hour reception. I'm actually surprised that your coworkers thought it would last til midnight! Lots of venues have noise restrictions they have to work against some places will cut you off at 11.