What is the difference between a reception and eating in a restaurant...?

I should also add that you're not even allowed to host an "event" at a restaurant. They're really just supposed to be for eating. So like if you're not allowed to host a pub trivia night you're definitely not allowed to host a wedding reception.

I mean this is kind of a moot point at the moment because right now you can't eat indoors in BC. However that will may change before the summer. But even if that happens there are differences between the two and restrictions are in place for a reason. Wedding receptions have been shown to be a high risk activity over and over again and it makes sense that they're currently not allowed, especially with variants becoming more dominant and when we are so close to getting everyone immunized.

To more specifically answer your question, the main differences between a wedding reception and eating at restaurant are:

1) You are currently limited to eat at a restaurant with your immediate household ONLY. Or if you are a person living alone you can eat at a restaurant with one or two maximum other people and these are the same people you see and are in your covid bubble.

At a wedding reception you could definitely group people by households only but I feel like you'd be grouping people at much smaller tables. If the restaurant has room for that though then it would be the same.

2) The bigger difference in my opinion is that when you're at a restaurant and you only know the people at your own table you're not moving around and trying to mingle with other people. You are there with your household/bubble to sit down and have a meal and when that meal is over you leave.

That's not the case with a wedding reception and last year it became clear that weddings were a big problem for this very reason. If everyone followed the rules it would probably be fine because everyone would be seated at all times and not moving about, potentially infecting people outside their household. Unfortunately when people start drinking or when they're in a very social setting like a wedding people get sloppy and start breaking rules.