Reception end Time?

Our venue had the time restriction to 1am finishing time. The vendors had half hour to clean up and clear the space as the cleaning too had to be done on my end with the help of others staying behind. Our day started 1pm for the getting ready shots.

Been back and forth with my mom, we have the venue till midnight. I said we should end at 11 and clean up but my mom wants to end at 10. I think we will end up ending it all by 10:30 and cleanup/ everything done by 11:15 ish.

Our venue's last call is at 12am and our guests will leave by 12:30ish. We are planning to leave around 11pm I think. I want to do an exit where everyone can watch us leave but no sparklers (I'm terrified of them LOL). Not sure if we will do anything in particular or more just have everyone say goodbye at once kinda thing.

For a Thursday wedding I think 10:30-11 is reasonable, a lot of people may still have to work the next day! You can always leave at whatever time you want and let you guests continue the party after you're gone.

The venue that we currently have, has a cut off time at 12:30 midnight. Since our wedding will be set for 4pm. We definitely won’t go that long, but we will be adding the “To Happily After Exit” to the schedule. I was thinking about bubbles, but it depends on the time of the day and purpose of using bubbles 😂 or paper airplanes ✈️ (as we both love to travel). Still up in the air.

What are you and your fiancé thinking of doing as a send off?

We have bar service for 8 hours so I think we should have everything wrapped up by 12:30. I do believe that 1 is the absolute latest we are allowed to have the room till. That is if we can have our original type of wedding reception by Jan. If we can't then we will probably have an afternoon wedding that will only be a few hours long.

We might have a government mandated end time for events, pending what Step 3 rules look like so that will determine our end time. We're likely not doing a grand exit.

When we were looking for venues we found most didn't allow anything past midnight or 1am at the latest, including tear down time. So our original plan was to wrap up at midnight to give an hour for teardown. But after losing our venue during covid we're likely using a space for the reception that will have no end time and I think we'll just let things go on as long as people want to be there. I assume we'll have last call at 1 or 2am like a normal bar but then if people want to hang out longer and dance they can and we'll come back the next day to clean up. Also since we won't be doing a ceremony or anything I think we'll have lots of energy to stay late.

We definitely won't do a grand exit regardless of when we end or decide to leave.

View quoted message I love sparkler send-offs !! The photos are always gorgeous. We also have limited time with our photographer so setting it up earlier is a great idea

My fiancé and I are getting married on a Saturday, although it can go later, we are sticking to the times of how long we can have our bartender. It is usually 8 hours which also includes set up and take down. With that being said we will probably start drinks at 5:30pm and have last call around 11:30-12:00 just because they need time to take down and I do not want to pay an extra $10 an hour for over time.

I am also doing a fake send off so we also don't have to pay our photographer any over-time as well, I am not trying to be stingy but we do have a pretty strict budget. This will probably be around 9:30 - 10:00 pm - I want to do the outdoor sparklers send off idea (I know - so over used but I love the idea), the photos I have seen are so pretty. It can also happen way earlier depending on what time we want to start things and have the photographer there for getting ready photos.

Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with having a wedding that ends early, remember. This wedding is a reflection and celebration of yours and your fiancé's love and relationship. If you are those who like to go to bed early and not party all night, have the wedding end at 10:00 pm. Completely your call. Do not feel obligated to have a party that goes all the way till 1 in the morning just for your guests.

My fiance and i are getting married on a sunday and everyone has to be out of our venue by 1230am and last call for drinks is 1145pm. But we haven't decided if we want a grand exit or not