Receiving line

That's my idea mingling with our guests throughout the night.

I've been to a wedding where the receiving line was after photos/cocktail hour and it was guests entered the reception area. So if your cocktail area is different from the reception area you can consider that.

I guess it also depends how long you have your photographer for. We have ours for 8 hours, we're doing first look/couple/bridal party photos before the ceremony. Doing a receiving line, which could eat up a good hour, isn't realistic for us because we want to make the most of our photographer's time too.

What my sister did to avoid it cutting into their photo time was have the recieving line when they returned to photos after announcing their entrance

If you are absolutely stuck on having a receiving line then I would say your best bet is to (if you can) go for pics immediately following the ceremony (unless you do a first look and all the main photo's earlier), during which your guests are at cocktail hour (assuming you are having one). As cocktail hour is winding down and people start making their way to the reception be waiting at the doors! This is the most obvious kind for me but in order to make the guests go more quickly perhaps make sure you only hug and thank and move on. You can make chit chat later - of course you will still get those older guests who want to tell you what has happened over the year and they choose then to do so, but maybe have your parents near by so that they can swoop in to keep it flowing?

Otherwise I suggest not doing one. I have a guest list of 250 so we will just mingle after supper.

Your idea of photos with the family and if going the group shots sounds great. That will get the time for a short period with your guests at the time. Receiving line is overdone in my opinion as those that are wanting to see your entrance will be blocked and hidden behind the wedding party and family members.

The idea of welcome dinner is always the time to have with family, friends and wedding party is to allow yourselves to go around and have that time to catch up with them rather than rushing on the day of your wedding during the receiving line.

Going to each table and thanking everyone and just having discussions is nice personally since conversations can be with everyone sitting on that table. We did it that way after dinner and it was nice just to make sure all your guests get to see you together happy.

My cousin and her husband walked around to each table and mingled with everyone throughout the night. It seemed casual and comfortable. I honestly don't love the idea of a receiving line but feel like FH and I will have to do it in order to attempt to enjoy our reception (by not having to go table-to-table to talk to everyone. We'll see what ends up happening.

We're having a welcome dinner the night before and will hope to connect with guests during that. We're not having a receiving line, but will kick off the cocktail hour with a mimosa toast and mingle with guests before our brunch reception.

We hadn’t thought much about a receiving line. I feel like my FH will like it because he doesn’t like talking to people lol. I thought we’d just mingle and visit our guests throughout the night. I had a memorable time when I was 12 at my older cousins wedding and the highlight to my sister and I was feeling so special when she came to sit and chat and dance with us. We felt like she was a celebrity or something. I know the guests don’t see it that way. But that moment stuck with me and I think it’s just because I felt more appreciated that way. That being said I remember she did the receiving line too once she got back from photos and was introduced. Then she took the extra time with each guest who she felt rushed with or didn’t see. I remember my mom saying let’s not bother with the line it’s not as personal and we were a close family seeing each other often.

This convo might have made me re-consider and possibly do both.

We'll either do a receiving line or go around during cocktail hour/dinner.

We have a lot of guests we don't usually see so we know lots will want to take a few minutes to say congratulations. If we do a receiving line, it might run into our photo time, especially if it takes awhile. We don't want photos to be rushed since we only have so much time to take photos.

We can also join in the cocktail hour and mingle if we skip the receiving line. We'd do our entrance right at the start and then mingle around before dinner. We'd prioritize visiting with older guests so when the dancing starts, we don't have to worry about missing them if they leave early. We can mingle/party with the crowd later on too.

We might do some between dinner courses/speeches, but I want to be able to eat dinner/enjoy speeches.

I think we are going to skip the whole receiving line thing. I don't really care to do it.. Which apparently a lot of people think this is selfish, but I see most of our guests all the time so its a little bit different for us. The people we don't see often we plan to take a few minutes and say hello and thanks for coming during the reception.

I like this idea if we finish photos early enough to do so, thanks!