What are you serving for cocktail hour?

We are doing pictures before the ceremony. We will then mingle with guests at the cocktail hour. Following that, the bridal party will all be introduced at the reception by the DJ.

If the Bride & Groom wants to join cocktail hour then they will need to do a first look and take pictures before the ceremony. Our plan is to do just that. We are getting all of our pictures done before the ceremony, giving guests about 20 - 30 minutes to find a seat, grab an app, and get a drink (cocktail half hour). Then we are doing our grand entrance and going right into the reception. Most guests find the waiting around part of the cocktail hour annoying (in my experience...but that doesn't mean it's the same for everyone), so we aren't having a full one. We plan to serve: crab dip, BLT salad, and fruit as appetizers.

We are doing all of our pictures before the ceremony so that we can enjoy cocktail hour. We are having pulled pork sliders with dipping sauces, assorted cheeses and buffalo chicken dip with tortilla chips.

We will be taking pictures during the whole cocktail hour. We’re serving coconut crusted chicken, artichoke dip pastries, and sage butternut squash raviolis. I made sure our coordinator will bring us some 😂

For cocktail hour we have a cold display of cheeses, crackers, hummus, crudites, and fruits. Then for hot apps, we are having pierogies with caramelized onion and sour cream and herb crusted meatballs. We will have butler-passed hors d'oerves: goat cheese canape with sweet roasted peppers, vegetable and cheese empanadas, franks in croute with dijon mustard, miniature beef wellingtons, smoked salmon canapes, philly cheese steak spring rolls, caprese crostini, and buffalo chicken and blue cheese poppers. We will also have a butcher block with carved corned beef and pork tenderloin. There's also a full open bar, including a signature drink we haven't thought of yet. This is all standard at our venue (I have since learned that Jersey weddings are abnormal compared to the rest of the country and unnecessarily over the top lol).

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Hahah that's a lot!

We will be doing pictures before the ceremony so that we can attend cocktail hour. We will join a few minutes after everyone and snack and mingle with as many people as possible and will still do a grand entrance into the reception.

As for the food...so much. Lol. 10 passed apps, 6 chafing dishes, 2 stations and a meat and cheese section. These are the options we have to decide from for cocktail hour.

View Quoted Comment Haha yeah, it's an insane amount of food. Then dinner is a plated 3 course meal plus dessert (appetizer, salad, and entree). This was a standard offering at every venue we looked at. And this is what every wedding we've done to looks like too. I honestly think it's a little overboard. I guess Jersey has moved from big hair to big weddings.

We did a rustic appetizer table of baguette bread, cheeses, fancy meats, light fruit. With a small DW guest list (15) we did post-ceremony pics pretty fast and included several group shots then escorted guests to the reception area for cocktail hour. We grabbed a drink, mingled for a few minutes then ducked out to change into our reception outfits (it took a while before anyone even noticed we were gone). Flowed great!

We are having a Catholic Gap so hopefully we'll be able to make it to half of cocktail hour! We are having an open bar, flat bread pizza, stuffed mushroom caps, and a meatball bar!

Breaded Brussels sprouts (sounds weird but taste really good), hamachi tartare (kind of like a ceviche), cheese pastries and meatballs.

We’re not doing a grand entrance (not possible with the space and also feels a little silly for a small wedding). We’re doing photos during cocktail hour, but not professional and we didn’t do bridal parties, so shouldn’t take long, so we should be enjoying most of the cocktail hour with our guests.

We're doing a first look so majority of our pictures will be out of the way. We're going to take some fun, celebratory pictures after the ceremony.

Once we're done, we'll most likely go back to the venue and hang out in the back rooms where they'll have food and snacks set up until cocktail hour is done. Then we'll have our grand entrance. Or we may join the cocktail hour and have the grand entrance then; I know, not the traditional way but who cares. Still deciding.

During cocktail hour, the open bar will be available until the end of the reception. There will be a fruit, cheese, and vegetable table. For passed apps, we're serving mozzarella sticks, mac and cheese balls, beef and cheese quesadillas, spanakopita, clams casino, oysters Rockefeller, shrimp cocktail shooters, Turkey bacon wrapped scallops, vegetable spring rolls, beef Wellington, and crab cakes.

This was our cocktail hour food. We did a first look specifically so we could be in our own cocktail hour. We just walked right in and started greeting everyone. We didn’t really do a grand entrance because that was not something I cared about.

We're having a fruit platter, shrimp cocktail, hummus and dill dip with bread and pita, and a 4th option tbd. Drinks of course. We are doing our own appetizers but having the main meal catered to keep costs down.

We will most likely just have one of the moms save us something from cocktail hour so we can taste it too! Then go straight to traditional grand entrance for reception. We are choosing a little of everything that's not the same item of food as the dinner, we wanted variety so we are choosing..chilled tomato-basil bruschetta, chilled roasted red pepper hummus dip with pita chips, hot mini crab cakes with spicy remoulade, hot bacon wrapped scallops, hot chicken pot stickers and hot jamaican jerk chicken skewers

We are doing a first look so we can join in cocktail hour. We will still make an official entrance when everyone sits for dinner,

We have 4 passed appetizers, and 1 stationary one. Our stationary one is a Caprese station with tomatoes & peaches & mozzarella & burrata, with different kinds of sea salts & olive oils & balsamic. Our passed ones are bacon wrapped dates, NY strip steak bites, smoked jalapeno buffalo sausage, and green chile mac n cheese bites!

We're having a charcuterie (meat, cheese, fruit) for food, and we're also planning to do photos before the ceremony so we can actually attend the cocktail hour (or half-hour, most likely). I'm thinking we won't do a grand entrance unless we can make it not awkward to disappear and reappear haha

We did bruschetta, crab rangoon, and coconut encrusted chicken tenders for our cocktail hour!

We didn't attend our cocktail hour because we did formal family portraits and individual ones with just the two of us during that time (unplanned, but the lighting was perfect so we went for it! Best decision ever!)

I just don’t think we will have time to make it for cocktail hour before it’s over with. We will not be doing a first look, so that hour will be taken up by photos for us! As far as food goes... probably just gonna put out cheese and crackers, veggie tray, fruit with dip, and cocktail weenies. Keeping that part simple, since dinner starts around an hour and a half after the ceremony ends.