Reception setup vs teardown

Our planner/DOC and her staff managed all of this. She had all of the rentals in place, on time, and handled set up and tear down. If you have a planner/DOC, I would discuss this with her/him.

Our DOC managed this as well. She coordinated with all of the vendors about the timing

Our venue coordinator mentioned that she would be taking care of this for us.

Our designer will be taking all of her decor, I am having to have my bridesmaids stay after to clean up the rest. Anything we brought and trash has to be clear before midnight

I agree that this is something to ask your DOC or at least your venue coordinator, if you have one. If you don't have either of those you'll have to figure it out.

What are you renting and what are they setting up?

There are a lot of ways this could go (I used to work for a catering company and I can think of several examples), but here's how ours worked:
At our miniwedding, we rented tables, chairs, and linens, all from one company. They delivered everything the day before the wedding. They set up the tent and tables. My brothers set up the chairs. We put the tablecloths on in the morning before the florist arrived and brought the napkins and silverware out later. At the end of the night we put all of the silverware into a bucket (because it wasn't rented) and just left everything else outside. I think the company just picked it all up the next day.

I should also mention that this was important point for our DOC because we did not stick around afterwards and went straight to our after party which was at a local bar. I believe the florist came back to collect the rental vessels, the catering staff never left in the first place, and the venue staff and DOC took care of the rest. But the DOC was the point of contact for coordinating all of it

I rented chairs and so we had to set up and breakdown ourselves that’s what the groomsmen were for but they had an option where we could have someone do the labor as well if we pay for it but it was really expensive.

Our florist provided flowers as well as some rentals. Our venue coordinator gave her access to the spaces in the morning to set everything up. At the end of the reception, she came back to remove the items we had rented from her. Our venue provided all of the tables, chairs, linens, and place settings so they handled set up and tear down for those items.

If you don’t have a coordinator of some kind, it’s very likely that you will be responsible for setup and tear down of rentals.

That was one thing that was super important to me, to have the venue that provided a DOC to take care of setting up before the wedding, and clean up at the end of the night so none of my guest, family or myself had to lift a finger. And if they didn't provide one, then would of hired a planner to provide this service.

Look into hiring a DOC/planner if your venue doesn't provide one already, I don't think you will regret it.

View Quoted Comment The venues we looked at don't provide their own coordinator but require that you hire your own. I have worked at enough DIY weddings as a "guest" that hiring a professional for the job is a no-brainer.

Our florist tore down everything for us and tent companies typically tear down their own tent. Our florist was amazing and packed my things for easy removal the day after. Suggest checking with your florist and venue. I assigned a few important items for family to grab on their way out and will pick them up at a later time. Hope this helps!!