Reception-How long was/is yours, and how late did/do you plan to go?

Our ceremony and reception are at the same location. The ceremony starts at 6 and will probably be over by 6:30. Our reception will begin as soon as the ceremony ends and will end at midnight.

Ours is 5 hours and I've been thinking of extending it. It's an extra $200 per hour. It's on a Sunday night so not sure what to do.

Ours is until midnight [starts at 6:30], even if the dancing etc. slows down we just wanted enough time to hang out with the guests since a lot of the guests are OOT and we don't get to see them very often.

Our reception was planned for 5 hours. I am glad we didn't do it any longer. People partied hard and were pooped out. We also had dinner about an hour after hall opened then cake following dinner. It turned out great for us...but it depends some people are used to staying at a reception for a long time....some just don't stay much past dinner.

I usually recommend you keep your reception to a maximum of 5 hours (including cocktails). Most of the time I even suggest a bride should book us for 4 hours and, if the party is going well, add the extra hour. If people are starting to leave... save yourself the extra money.

Either way, on your timeline, get all the events out of the way earlier, so the fourth and fifth hour should be all about dancing.

Wedding 11am beach

Cocktail 12-1

Lunch reception 1-3

We had our cocktail hour start at 4 and the last of our guests left at midnight, but that is pretty typical for our area. We probably had about 50 out of 135 people left at 11:30.

Five hours is plenty at night; four during the day.

With our venue we have it for the whole day (8am-midnight) and the dj's contract says that he plays until midnight. We are going to eat about 5:15 ish and I figure that most people will leave by **** and that will give us some down time to tear down the tables and what not.

Wedding is at 2p (we're having a small ceremony with family and bridal party only)
Pictures from 3p-~4p
Reception hall opens at 4p and we'll have a DJ starting at 5p...but because 90% of our family is local...I think they'll probably go home for a while. But the reception hall is opening the bar at 4...so who knows lol.
Reception starts at 6p
Reception will go until 11p.

Those who are just invited to the reception are going to be told to come between 5p-6p.

We're doing a 1pm ceremony, 5p cocktails & 6-11pm dinner & dancing. I just can't imagine ending the party at 10, but didn't want to ask guest to wait around any longer than they had to start cocktails.

We are doing ceremony @ 5:30

Cocktails @ 6-7

Dinner @ 7

Partay until1 am

@ Future Mrs. C I have been working on my time line for 2 days so I know the fun

My reception is only 4 hours. 5:30 ~ 9:30. Our venue will have a D.J in their lounge that night. We were invited to attend. FH and I will go to the after party until 11:00 pm. Then it is honeymoon time

Most receptions are about 4-5 hours long. Once people eat, about 5% of those people will end up leaving. Your family and close friends or whomever you invite will end up staying the whole time. Probably people will start getting tired or too drunk about 10ish, so that last hour you'll want help taking down the decorations and possibly clean anything up so you don't get charged extra for anything. Also if you do have a bar, make sure a sober person counts everything before and after the reception. My sister-in-law was charged extra for stuff we really didn't use. So get that extra hour if you can afford it. If not then have it be over by 9pm, no one's feelings will be hurt and use that last hour to clean up

Thanks for all of the advice so far! One more thing to mention, we don't have to clean up. The decor is being done by the venue, and they do all of the clean up. We also get 30 minutes after the end time to vacate the premises.

We get our space at noon, ceremony starts at 4. Reception will start around 5 at the same venue, and go until 9, when cleanup has to begin. I don't think I would ever stay at a reception for 6 hours. I'd definitely save my money and use it on something else.

Including cocktail hour; 6 hours

Since we are having a Jewish ceremony on a saturday we had to wait until the sun goes down hence having to do the wedding before daylight savings (March 8, 2014). Our ceremony will start at 730 and the reception will end at 1 but since we will spring forward it really ends at 2 am!

Our wedding is at 4pm, reception is right afterwards at the same park, and we will be done by 9:00pm.

Our ceremony will start at 6:30pm, with our cocktail hour starting at 7pm, and our reception beginning at 8pm.

I've been to other wedding that had their reception scheduled for 6 hours, and it went a little too long. We stayed until the end since they couple were close friends of ours, but almost 2/3 of their guests had left after 4 or 5 hours.