Is a Receiving Line Needed?

I think receiving lines our outdated, at least in my area.

Our final guest count is around 172. We are not doing a receiving line. We just plan to do our best to go table to table.

100 people I consider about a medium size wedding and would take around 45 minutes or more to do it. It's very boring. Try your luck at the tables.

We aren't doing one. We will go table to table during the reception!

We regret not doing a receiving line. We barely ate anything because we were doing table visits (we only had 11 tables other than the head table). While they might be outdated, I think they are a great option. We went to a wedding last year where the bride and groom dismissed each row and gave each person a hug and a hello. I think that is a great idea and is very personal. Most of the weddings I've been to recently have had some form of a receiving line. None of them took that long. Probably 25 minutes or less for weddings of 100-175 people.

No, I wouldn’t recommend it. Several of my friends say they could have done without it.

We aren't doing one. We are doing a first look, but our photographer suggested not doing a receiving line because they can take so much time. If you plan to greet/thank everyone at the reception, then you will be in control of how long you stay and talk to certain guests. If you have a receiving line, chatty Kathy may want to talk forever when you may not want to, and it's just going to prolong it for everyone, and you may miss out on really talking to other guests.

We don't plan on doing one. We also aren't doing a first look so all of our group pictures are being done during cocktail hour and we're expecting about 220 people at our wedding so that would take the entire cocktail hour to get through. We're just going to go around to each table during dinner.

I think receiving lines are way way way preferable to table visits, both as a bride and as a guest. I want to see you and say congrats, but honestly, taking soooo much time during dinner to do this either extends dinner for far too long or interrupts your guests as they're eating. We had receiving line for about 200 ppl, it took about 20 minutes, then we went to pictures and guests went to cocktail hour. Easy peasy.

Regardless of what you decide you absolutely have to speak to everyone individually at your wedding, it is so incredibly rude not to do so.

Hi, date twin! I agree with PPs that receiving lines are outdated. In fact, our wedding venue strongly advises against them - especially for a bigger wedding like ours (and yours). They take up way too much time that could otherwise go towards your cocktail hour

View Quoted Comment I agree with this. I don't really see them as outdated necessarily, just not common anymore. And you won't want to go table to table during the dinner hour - you'll want to eat!

We had 10 tables at our wedding and got through maybe half of them during the course of the evening. Luckily we had paid to extend our reception by an hour and I'd say we talked to just about everyone, even if we weren't together, throughout the course of the evening.

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Do you think 10 mins would be enough for that amount of people? That's the amount of time that would be allotted for one if we did have one just because of pictures that will need to be taken during the rest of cocktail hour and I don't want to start one if we wont be able to get through everyone during that time. It seems rude to me to start one but then run off and begin pictures while some people are still coming through.

We didn’t even consider doing a receiving line. If you don’t want it, cut it

We arent doing one and our venue advised us to skip it and just say hi and thanks while we walk around the tables before dinner

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10 minutes would probably be pushing it, it you can tweak your schedule a bit and find a way to allot for 15-20 minutes, it will probably be doable. A quick hug/hello/thank you for coming shouldn't take that long.

My cousin did one, it was kind of awkward.

We didn't plan one. We kind of did a reverse receiving line?

Everyone followed us out of the church, like just joined in on the recessional. So, when we turned around after our exit people were filing out. We greeted everyone right in the narthex of the church before starting pictures. It only took maybe 5 minutes (10 max) and we got all of our greets out of the way!

Our pictures went fast so we got to mingle the last little bit of cocktail hr plus a few table visits after dinner, and we got to enjoy our party! It worked perfectly!

Our wedding is about the same size and we're skipping the receiving line. I don't have time for Aunt Sally to hold up the line telling me all about her flight lol. We'll move around throughout the reception to say hi to everyone.