Leaving Reception Early

I've personally not seen this before unless it was by guests with very young children or elderly guests.

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If it's an evening wedding with dancing, some guests might need alcohol to feel comfortable dancing or socializing with a bunch of strangers after dinner. A cash bar may be "a" reason guests might leave early. I think another couple here wrote they either had a dry bar or open bar that turned into a cash bar at which time many many guests left. The bride wished she had not done that so just passing along that story here.

View Quoted Comment I have Seen the same thing with the two weddings I went To. I think as the one paying for the meals that this would truly bother me. It’s like they are only there for the food. However I will say there are often extenuating circumstances

View Quoted Comment Right?! They had an open bar and a DJ. They even changed when they were cutting their cake bc of the amount of people leaving. My heart broke for them! I could never do that!

View Quoted Comment The ceremony was at 3. Cocktail hour was only an hour and then they brought everyone in so the bridal party could be announced. They even skipped all of the mother/father dances and bouquet toss. We ate around 5.

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Ditto on the comment that "As someone who has left early recently from 2 wedding in the last month I have to say that it had nothing to do with my feelings for the bride and groom."

There's always extenuating circumstances and people need to leave at different times for various reasons. We had a few people duck out early - one didn't know anyone (don't blame him - glad he made it!), another had a 6 month old to get home to (totally get that - glad they made it at all!), and another had a mom needing assistance at home (totally get that - glad they made it at all!).

Now, if there's 200 people and 50 leave early, I would probably be annoyed, and think "sheesh, are we boring?"

View Quoted Comment Then if that's their thoughts, they should have declined. Guests know well in advance about the wedding and reception. To me it's just lame excuses. They had plenty of time to prepare for the day.

We had 2 couples need to do that - one because the wife was pregnant; 1 because the wife had been recently through surgery. Both people were commuting about 45 minutes after the ceremony... completely understandable.

But except for a few people, I don't usually see this happen except with incredibly large weddings where people feel like they were courtesy invites.

View Quoted Comment Reception was until 10. Almost everyone was gone by 8. People actually started cleaning up the tables while the few of us were left on the dance floor. I was heart broken for them the bride was trying so hard to not be upset by it.

View Quoted Comment That I could understand leaving early. No reason to make everyone wait that long!

View Quoted Comment I can see those being reasonable excuses to leave. It was a coworker who was the bride and even the people who are very close to her left early. No kids or anything. Even live close to the ceremony location.

View Quoted Comment Reception was until 10 pm after starting at 3 pm? That's 7 hours! I would have left at 8 too, more than five hours is a LONG wedding! I can't eat, drink, or dance for more than five hours it's boring and exhausting after about three hours. It sounds like they didn't time it correctly and everyone got bored.

View Quoted Comment I've been to a lot of weddings that are in that time frame and never had an issue. I guess if you are actually enjoying yourself it's not a big deal. I enjoy dancing and dont get to go out much anymore so I take advantage of the time away from work and home and are happy to celebrate my friends wonderful day. Especially knowing how much time, effort and money that had gone into it.

I guess is depends on the wedding. I’m usually one of the first in the dance floor ready to dance all night but then if the wedding doesn’t have good music or has any entertainment... now the elderly people tend to leave the wedding earlier as sometimes is too long of an event for them.

I'm definitely that person... I don't like large social situations so I stay until all the planned activities happen and then I leave as soon as possible without being rude. I actually shortened my wedding by an hour after realizing we would have an hour and a half of time after cake cutting. Our venue will be available for an hour after our exit just in case families want to mingle for a bit longer, but it's just not my personality to stay and mingle for long periods of time.

I had some of my dearest friends & family leave my wedding reception early, and it was totally fine because they communicated with me their reasons why! Some of the completely understandable reasons were...

1. It was on a Sunday evening, so a lot of people had work early in the next morning, so they couldn’t stay late.

2. Some older relatives had health problems that didn’t allow them to be out and about for extended periods of time.

3. Some friends and family drove 3+ hours to get to our reception, and they were unable to stay the night at a hotel, so they had to drive back the same day, and they didn’t want to get home at 1am or later, which is what would have happened if they stayed for the whole reception.

I’ve seen some people mention lack of open bars as the reason people leave early. This is true depending on your crowd of guests. While we had a dry wedding (except for champagne), 98% of our guests don’t drink enough to feel the absence of alcohol.

However, if it’s a wedding where lots of guests like to drink, I’m sure there are some guests (not all) who care more about free drinks than celebrating the bride/groom, so that’s a reason some people may leave early. I had an entire group of old friends who didn’t show up to my reception when they found out there wasn’t going to be an open bar, so it’s sadly a very real thing that some guests will care more about alcohol than the couple & will leave early (or in my case, not come at all) if it’s not an open bar reception.

P.S. I would like to extra emphasize on my comment above that I am NOT saying that everyone who likes drinking alcohol is only at a wedding for free drinks. As someone with HUGE social anxiety, I totally get that some people use alcohol to help socialize/dance/etc. I’m just saying SOME people - like my old friends - don’t really care about the bride/groom and just want free stuff (food, desserts, and sometimes especially drinks). Just thought I’d clarify so no one feels like I’m attacking anyone who drinks alcohol. I personally adore my Moscow Mules.

I think it’s a know your crowd thing. I’ve been to plenty of weddings where people leave early, but granted they are often very large weddings. About 300+ people so it’s sometimes hard to notice people leaving after dinner. Also, the majority of these weddings were also a buffet dinner, which I think also makes a difference.

This is very normal and I wouldn't be offended at all. Especially if some people are not the type to enjoy drinking and dancing. It's perfectly acceptable to leave after dinner. The reception is literally a thank you for guests who attended the ceremony. So if they attended the ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner - you should have already spoken with them - i genuinely don't see what could possibly be rude about leaving after dinner.

*like one PP mentioned, it used to be that people did not leave until after the cake was cut. However, so many people do the cake cutting ASAP or not at all anymore, that the end of dinner has become the general signal that it's ok to leave.

Also, I would absolutely expect people to leave earlier than you prefer if you have a large gap between your ceremony and reception. That's super rude and creates a very long day for people, even if they love and are super happy for you.

Wow I can't believe people do such thing bit rude gessh