How many hours should I book venue for?

In my experience, ceremonies and receptions that have been in the same place, usually last between 5-7 hours (total time). So maybe book it for 10-12 so you have enough time for set up and break down? that is, if you're doing a "traditional" ceremony/reception (ceremony, pictures, cocktail hour, dinner, dancing...)

No cocktail hour and the ceremony will most likely be 30 minutes or less.

Depends on how long you want your reception to go for. Have you talked to DJs (if you are having music), some of them have minimums you might want to check with.

I would say at least 4-6 hours, to include set up, ceremony, reception, and take down.

We only had to set up 3 tables and then the guest book and stuff. It still took almost 2 hours to set-up! It's exhausting! It also depends on if they will have tables set up for you already, or if you have to rent them, etc.

You'll need to set-up, then go get ready! You may even need to shower in between. At $100/hr, you may get off cheaper by hiring a local day of coordinator to do all the set-up for you. At least it would be alot less stress.

The ceremony lasts 30 minutes, but the reception should be 3-4 hours. Then you have to clean up after the reception. That's faster than set-up, but still takes time.

Our venue for our Ceremony and Reception is the same. We are renting it for 10-12 hours because we are also decorating ourselves. This will give us plenty of time to work with and if the party wants to run 6-8 hours it can. I would talk to your venue about setting a time frame but if you decide to go over because you want to party longer or need extra time to clean up then ask if you can pay that day of. (before the night ends) Ours is allowing us to do that since we will be having over 150 guests and a lot of decorations.

If its not rented the day before will they let you come in then to do set up?..then just charge you for the time you actually use it on the day of?

Travis's Girl: If you go over they only charge you $100 per hour.

Heather H.: Our venue is a retirement community club house but I will ask them.

Ceremony is an hour or less.

Reception is anywhere from 4 - 8 hours, depending on the style of food service, entertainment, local customs and laws.

Figure at least an hour to set up for the ceremony. An hour to flip the room, and depending on how many and how organized your group is, it could be longer. I've seen rooms for 500 flipped in an hour by a competent team. I've seen 200 person weddings take 2 hours because the staff was morons.

Also, who is cleaning up? If it's you and the guests, I'd try to avoid DIY, or having guests do that. You'll be tired, and so will the guests. If budget is an issue, I'll bet there's a boy scout troop that could come in the next morning and do it for a merit badge or something. Or a theater group or some other charity group that would do it, if you paid them or made a donation, etc.

I am having my venue for a total of 5 hours. We will. Start at 5pm and end at 10pm.

One hour will be cocktail hour.

I would add an extra hour or so for set-up and breakdown.

I also second having someone else help with the clean-up.

The clean up I plan on hiring a couple of people to help.