Is an hour and a half enough for reception?

My fi is hell bent on having a cruise wedding. Its either that, or a Chinese banquet, which is structured so that theres way too much people and you don’t really get to spend any quality time with your guests.

Problem is the cruise reception is only an hour and a half. I feel like that is really little time!! However, all the people we invite will be cruising with us. No one is going to drive 6 hours to the port and not cruise!!

How would you guys feel in this situation…. is hour and a half too short?

My daughter was married on the Fascination. We had 68 sailing & 47 non sailing. The 1 1/2 hr reception flew by & did not seem long enough, but it's never long enough when you're having a good time. Since there were so many friends and family sailing, the party continued for 5 days. The newly weds felt like they were busy entertaining or socializing with friends, but did make time for each other everyday. They said they would not have done it differently. The Carnival planner that cruised with us was very helpful and took care of any of their needs throughout the cruise. It was a wonderful wedding and cruise. My friends, who attended wedding, but didn't sail, still say it was the best wedding ever. For the money, I thought it was well worth it. If you have a "group" cruise, Carnival will provide a 1 hr cocktail party for all of you one evening of your cruise. (Make sure you book your room with the group, I booked daughter's before group set up & had to pay for bride & groom to attend, since they weren't included in group!) Anyway, I highly recommend a cruise wedding!

I would think 1.5 hours is too short, but if they are going to cruise with you, then no problem!

We are getting married in October and ours is only an hour (plus the half hour for the ceremony).

At first we thought it was short, but then we looked at it as a reverse reception. Most of the time you have your reception, do the cake, dances, drink, etc. Which takes up about an hour. And then everyone just sort of mingles until it's over.

With everyone having to arrive so early, they get to go to the buffet and mingle for a couple hours before the wedding, then do all of the reception stuff and it's over.

My daughter was married on the Fascination. We had 68 sailing & 47 non sailing. The 1 1/2 hr reception flew by & did not seem long enough, but it's never long enough when you're having a good time. Since there were so many friends and family sailing, the party continued for 5 days. The newly weds felt like they were busy entertaining or socializing with friends, but did make time for each other everyday. They said they would not have done it differently. The Carnival planner that cruised with us was very helpful and took care of any of their needs throughout the cruise. It was a wonderful wedding and cruise. My friends, who attended wedding, but didn't sail, still say it was the best wedding ever. For the money, I thought it was well worth it. If you have a "group" cruise, Carnival will provide a 1 hr cocktail party for all of you one evening of your cruise. (Make sure you book your room with the group, I booked daughter's before group set up & had to pay for bride & groom to attend, since they weren't included in group!) Anyway, I highly recommend a cruise wedding!

Was your cocktail hour offered by your planner? This is the first I'm hearing of this. My wedding is set for June 18 on the Sunshine. All of a sudden it feels like it's coming up so quickly!

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I think the answer to this is different for every couple. What is important to you to do at the reception? What can be done later during the cruise? We actually chose not to have a reception at all, just came and champagne. That and the chatting with our guests were the important things to us, and we could hang out with our non sailing guests (only 6 of them) the day before the wedding and hang out with sailing guests during the cruise. No need to pay for food I didn't like so we could have a room set aside for us. But to some people the parts we didn't want (dancing, bouquet toss, speeches etc.) are very important.

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My daughter reception is an hour and a half. Need advise on the flow of the reception. What order of events have been done in the past?

My daughter reception is an hour and a half. Need advise on the flow of the reception. What order of events have been done in the past?

My reception is going to be an hour and a half on the NCL Spirit. Due to the ship sailing at 4 pm, the longest we can have is an hour and a half. What I would like to do is get the cake cutting and first dance over with at the start and that will leave us the rest of the time to mingle with our guests. We are not doing the bouquet toss or the garter toss.

Also, most (if not all) of our guests are spending the night before the wedding at the same hotel so we are planning on having a get together that night.

Lori

Our wedding is scheduled for one hour also... it is making us nervous so we are in the process of trying to upgrade to an hour and a half.

I do think the time will go by very quickly. We are not doing most of the traditional reception activities so that should help a lot! Decide how many dances are really important and get the guests involved at the end of those dances. We are expecting a total of 50-60 people and with such a small group, most of whom are already married, we are also forgoing the bouquet and garter toss. They will send you the paperwork on which items to include during the reception but consider how long each of them takes and what is really important. If you have 6 people toasting and each toast takes 5-10 minutes you could be using up the whole hour!

I also recommend having a get together the night before. Ours is more so for the guests who are not sailing. Since the reception is so short it will be tough to get quality time with each of them so we're spending time together the day before. You'll have plenty of time with everyone during the cruise so focus on the non-sailing guests and set up something the night before the wedding!

Our 1.5 reception felt like 3 hours to me.

Most people I have talked to have felt rushed with their 1.5 hour receptions. I opted for the two hours just to be safe

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We are getting married in October and ours is only an hour (plus the half hour for the ceremony).

At first we thought it was short, but then we looked at it as a reverse reception. Most of the time you have your reception, do the cake, dances, drink, etc. Which takes up about an hour. And then everyone just sort of mingles until it's over.

With everyone having to arrive so early, they get to go to the buffet and mingle for a couple hours before the wedding, then do all of the reception stuff and it's over.

We are doing the same and I agree with you. I'm looking at it as a "cocktail hour" versus a reception. We plan to have our bride/groom dance, may skip the mother/son father/daughter dances, cake cutting, pictures, and then just drinking/mingling. Keeping it very simple and trying to not have the rushed feeling.