Cocktail Reception All Night?

Cocktail Reception All Night?

May 21st, 2006 @ 8:27 pm by Mrs. Grasshopper
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Our venue can hold 125 folks for a sit down dinner, which is perfect for our 125 person guest list. What is not perfect is that we also want to do everything from the ceremony to the dancing in our venue to keep everyone from having to hike all around the city. Right now we are trying to figure out how to transition from moment to moment of the wedding naturally, without having our guests watch the break down of the ceremony into the dinner and reception set-up.

We thought we could move everyone up to the mezzanine for the cocktail hour, but learned that wouldn’t work because the mezzanine only holds 85 folks. Hmm. Now what?

Then we thought, “ok we’ll have a cocktail reception!” which would require less set-up and everyone could mingle all night long! But then we realized people are showing up for a ceremony at 5:30 p.m. and will be expecting to eat a full meal. Sigh. So what to do?

How can one have a cocktail style wedding or tapas in the evening, and still make sure the guests are happy with their food and feel satisfied when they go home? I personally love tapas and would probably prefer it over a full sit down meal, but I don’t know if this would fly with everyone.

What do you all think? Is there a way to do a creative tapas dinner that might require less set-up for the reception so that guests could mingle freely without feeling they are in the way of a room change or that they were robbed of a real meal?

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9 Responses to “Cocktail Reception All Night?”

Guest

Miss Caterpillar

I’m having a similar issue: I’m only willing to pay for one set of chairs at my venue, so the tent for the reception will be empty until the ceremony chairs get moved over. I figure a receiving line and cocktails will distract people in the interim.

5/21/06 @ 10:15 pm (reply)

Guest

Jenn

What about adding a carving station to add some weight to the meal?

5/21/06 @ 11:18 pm (reply)

Guest

Ashley

I agree with Jenn–the carving station will add a bit of heft, and it gives guests a choice, as well.

Another idea: serve tapas, in the mezzanine.

5/22/06 @ 3:14 am (reply)

Guest

Miss Firefly

Is there an outdoor area? Maybe you can have cocktails both on the mezzanine and in another area?

You would definatly need more than passed hors d’oerves around dinner time. But if you have several stations — carving, seafood, sushi, maybe pasta(?) or what ever you like in addition, people would def fill up (we’re having so much food during our cocktail hour, that I don’t think people will be hungry for the sit down dinner!)

5/22/06 @ 7:59 am (reply)

Guest

Or perhaps a buffet. People can just grab their own food then go off and mingle.
And maybe during the “room change” period plan to do an activity or two outside of the room, if there’s outdoor space.

5/22/06 @ 12:41 pm (reply)

Guest

shelley

I’m having a 5:30 wedding followed by a tapas reception. Some of the dishes include little beef tenderloins over mashed potatoes with a mushroom glaze, stemless champagne flutes with cold cucumber soup, martini glasses with greek and caesar salads, mini hamburgers, hotdogs, french fries & grilled cheeses (we thought that sounded really fun), and an ice tower filled with steamed shrimp, crabclaws, and crab louis. Some other options were a shot of corn chowder with mini crab cakes, a chicken stir fry station, and a pasta bar. I’ve been to weddings with mashed potato bars (this is a huge hit - mashed potatoes with different toppings served in martini glasses) and oyster bars. It’s all dinner food, just in smaller servings with portable dishes. As long as you lean more towards tapas and less towards appetizers, you’ll be fine.

5/22/06 @ 4:23 pm (reply)

Guest

hey, we’re using the foundry for our november wedding as well and doing the glorified cocktail party thing. there’s nothing wrong with the cocktail party dinner esp. in this space since it has a lounge sort of atmosphere! maybe you can move people to the courtyard for setup- that’s what we’re planning to do if there weather is ok.

5/22/06 @ 7:54 pm (reply)