Length of reception?

[Desnik]

I'm sorry. I am just filled with questions today!LOL

I was just looking over my contract and it states we get the White Hall room & patio for 5 hours for the reception. One hour will be for the cocktail hour, but 4 for the dinner. Does anyone else feel like that's a long time? Am I crazy to feel like it is? We are having about 50 people, no DJ, but a string quartet. We will have Mickey there but that only takes 30 minutes. I don't want my guests to be bored or have the reception feel dragged out. We aren't doing any other dessert, just individual mini cakes. How long does the dinner really take?

 

[PrettyPeony]

I'm sorry. I am just filled with questions today!LOL

I was just looking over my contract and it states we get the White Hall room & patio for 5 hours for the reception. One hour will be for the cocktail hour, but 4 for the dinner. Does anyone else feel like that's a long time? Am I crazy to feel like it is? We are having about 50 people, no DJ, but a string quartet. We will have Mickey there but that only takes 30 minutes. I don't want my guests to be bored or have the reception feel dragged out. We aren't doing any other dessert, just individual mini cakes. How long does the dinner really take?

I am a coordinator for a golf club and I here is the ruff timing of everything...
Cocktail Hour (1Hour)
Introductions (5-8 Min) Depending on how many people are getting intro.
1st Dance (5min)
Toast (5 min. each)
Blessing (3 min. each)
Dinner (1 hour and a half if it is a sitdown with 4 courses)
Cake Cutting (5 min)
Father/Daughter Mother/Son Etc. (Each 5 min)

In my opinion I would say that 4 hours would be perfect! Esp. if you aren't doing all of the above. You don't want guests asking around "what time does this go til anyways?"

I hope this helps!

 

[Desnik]

Thanks! But the way Disney has it is 1 hour for the cocktail hour(obviously ) then 4 hours for the reception. So a total of 5 hours. To me that seems like too much. Especially since we will not have introductions(we plan on being at the cocktail hour with our guests). We will also not have father/daughter, mother/son dances, no cake cutting(we are doing individual mini cakes), no blessing. We will have a 4 course sit down dinner.

 

[lurkyloo]

Your sit-down dinner will prolly take longer than a buffet, so that might help a bit. We had a 3-hour reception and what worked out to be a 45-minute pre-reception (by the time we got there), and it was just perfect! We didn't have a DJ, garter toss, bouquet toss, etc. - just first dances and cake-cutting, and a few speeches.

I liked that there were no long stretches when people were kinda looking around wondering what was next. We all had enough time to mingle and chat, but not so much time that we were looking at our watches.

 

[OceanGdss]

Ours was originally scheduled for 4 hours, but we cut it short at 3.5. We had 70 guests, no DJ (used an iPod) and Mickey & Minnie...it ended up being the perfect amount of time!