Reception length

My reception was 4-5 hours long and I'm happy with that. I was so tired by end of the night anyway aha. Majority of our guests were gone by end of the night but it's probably also because more than half my crowd were older folks and I had several families with kids. So I guess really only the young ones in my age range stayed. My DJ was there for the full five hours and I do think that was a good idea since he did pump it up for those who did stay.

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Was your reception 4 or 5 hours? I'm debating on that final hour.

Were you happy with the length of your reception? Yes, but it FLEW BY.

Do you wish that you would have had a little more time? Yes, because it FLEW BY lol.

Were the majority of your guests still there at the end of the reception? No. Most of our guests were gone. We also didn't have to be out until the next day, so I wasn't in a rush. DJ was meant to leave by 11....and she did. Once the DJ left, we sat out on the deck where the bar was with the handful of the people left and hung out till 1 am.

My reception started at 6, btw. So I guess from 6 - 11, that makes 5 hours.

This depends on your crowd. If they like to dance and party, I would choose 5 hours. At my cousin's wedding in 2010, my family actually kept paying the DJ to stay later and later. I don't think he left until 2 in the morning. It was wild. Ours is much more low key and we don't have a lot of dancers, so our reception is only 3 hours.

View Quoted Comment Five. It was rly meant to be 4.5 but we made it five for the people who lingered around.

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See, this is what we considered doing. Our DJ said he doesn't mind if the party is still going and we decide last minute to extend it for an hour. I guess my biggest concern was giving my DOC and her team an "official" end time since they'll be the ones staying to clean up and break down afterward.

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Were you guys responsible for clean up and breakdown after? My biggest concern is not having an end time to give our DOC who will be cleaning everything up.

We had the dance floor open for around 2.5 hours as well and it felt like plenty of time. Most people were exhausted by the end but that could’ve been because staff was going around refilling everyone’s wine glasses all night haha.

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Does your DOC have a time she wants to leave? The people who stayed to party also helped clean up the next day lol.

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Our DOC, and a few family/friends/bridal party cleaned up for us. We had the venue until noon the next day, so we went back with our parents and bridal party to finish cleaning up & getting our stuff out.

If it's just a matter of paying extra for the DJ, I'd extend to 5 hours. I don't think you'll ever regret having "too much" time, but you may regret not having enough. We are doing a first look, so we cut our cocktail hour down to just 30 minutes to maximize reception/dancing time. We still have only 2 hours for dancing. I would love more, but at $500/30 minutes (venue cost), I just can't justify it.

I would maybe say don't pay for the extra hour if I were you. Even as a bridesmaid, the last reception I was a part of flew by and didn't seem like it was long enough and it was only 4 hours. But there were also only 5 people on the dance floor during the last hour and tons of empty tables because a lot of people had already cleared out.

If you decide against the extra hour and DJ expense, you at least don't lose time from your reception for packing up because you don't have an early deadline to be out of the venue.

Our reception was 3.5 hours long and I honestly felt so exhausted and ready to be done by then 😂 maybe I could’ve gone for another 30 mins but another 90 would’ve been just totally exhausting, at least for me! We also only had 100 guests, so if you have more guests maybe a longer reception would be good so you don’t have to rush through your table visits. But personally I think 4 would be enough!

Our reception was 4 hours and almost everyone was still there. People wanted to keep partying, even the older people. The DJ was still playing music when the lights came on and people were still dancing lol. Our reception was from 6:30-10:30pm with cocktail hour right before.

Our reception was from 6-11 with cocktail hour before. For me, this felt perfect. Most of the people left around 10:30 so it gave me time to just chill with the people who were still there. The band played until the end and there were still people dancing until the end. I think 5 hours is a good amount of time because it allows people to really party, dance, chill, relax, mingle, etc. without feeling too rushed and also gives you plenty of time to visit with everyone.

Our ceremony got delayed, so our reception was 4 hours instead of 5. We could have used another half our or hour for sure. All our guests stayed until 11!