Reception ending early

Yes definitely add more time. WE are having a 5hr open bar and our reception starts at 6pm...

I would. We are having out ceremony 445-5 cocktail hour 5-6 and then the reception 6-11.

Yes I would add more hours, 2 hours is technically not enough ... once you get back from the cocktail hour your going to do your first dance, parents first dances, toasts, dinner, cake cutting and that itself might take more than an hour and then you’ll be left with about 30 mins of dancing- so I don’t feel like it’s enough time

That's what I thought lol FH thinks we can keep the party going somewhere else. But honestly the venue is in the middle of nowhere (takes about 10 -15 minutes just to get back to a main road) and close to a few resident homes who request no music after 11pm.

You definitely need to extend your wedding hours especially the fact that it is a saturday.

I would extend it an hour or two, and if you want to keep partying somewhere, try to find a local bar or something and host an after-party.

Honestly I wouldn't even consider a venue that required us to end at 8:30!! We opted to go with a slightly higher food/bev minimum at our venue to use the restaurant which allows us to go all night, rather than the terrace which forced us to end at 10. We plan on going until at least 11:30, 12 if possible.

Agreed that you should add more time - 3 hours is extremely short. We were going to have a 4 hour reception and our caterer suggested we add another hour to make it 5! Once you subtract cocktail hour, toasts, first dances, etc, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for dinner and dancing. And while it’s true you can continue with an after party, I think the formal hosted reception should take up the majority of the evening, especially since people are traveling for it.

I would definitely add more time. 2 hours is about what it takes to go through first dance, any other dances or parents dances, cake cutting, and dinner

I would add more hours. If you don’t want to do that, you could do an afterparty somewhere else afterwards

My cocktail hour starts at 5pm then we need to be out if the venue by 10pm so we are shutting it down by 9:30pm. So reception is about 3 1/2 hours. Then we're having an after party.

Our cocktail starts at 4 and the reception ends around 830 on a Friday. Then we’re inviting everyone elsewhere to continue partying if they choose since we have mostly an older crowd and everyone is traveling in.

Our ceremony starts at 6, followed by a cocktail "hour" (more like 30-45 mins) and our dinner will be served around 7. We are ending at 10. I think three hours is enough, because we do plan on going out afterwards with friends and wanna make it to the bars in time after changing, etc. My family gets crazy with an open bar so we want to keep that craziness to a minimum. We also have to pay the venue per hour, so that's something we considered when ending earlier. It's up to you a the end of the day!

Originally the first venue we booked we had until 1030pm with everyone off the property by 11, but that's another story lol.

This new venue is so beautiful and all-inclusive. In the package we have a total of 6.5 hours (3 hours before, 30 minutes ceremony, and 3 hour reception). Receptions can start as late at 7pm, but we are getting married during daylight savings end, so the sun sets early, like 6:30. GA has crazy weather, so we will be able to get married outside.

The schedule we have so far for using the property, is the following:
2:00 - 4:30 - pre-ceremony pics with bridal party (no first look)
4:30 - guest arrive
5:00 - 5:30 - ceremony
5:30 - 6:30 - (during cocktail hour/bar opens)- together pics
6:30 - 8:30 - reception
3 hours is not long enough for first dance, father/daughter & mother/son dances, cake cutting, bouquet/garter toss, toast, dinner, dancing etc. lol. After talking to FH and showing him the timeline on paper we are adding on 2 hours for dancing and other things not finalized.

Are you able to extend the reception after signing the contract and making a deposit? I am in a similar situation where I only have 3 hours between the cocktail hour and reception and that’s not long enough!

View Quoted Comment Yes! I actually had to make a payment this past weekend. I asked them and they told me I can add up to two hours and end at 10:30 since it's in a residential area. I just have to finalize everything and make my final payment 3 weeks before the wedding.

View Quoted Comment Yay that’s good! Thank you so much for replying!

View Quoted Comment You're welcome. Good luck with the rest of your planning!