Wedding Blog
The weddings I’ve attended recently (meaning while I’ve been planning my own) have all been completely different. There was the shotgun pregnant cousin wedding, the semi-formal hotel ballroom wedding, and the odd formal ceremony/uber informal reception wedding. In all three of these, there were no receiving lines.
The shotgun wedding had the bride standing up to thank everyone for coming, and the ballroom wedding had the couple going from table to table. The haphazard informal reception had the bride and groom so drunk they were unable to thank people by the receiving line or table to table. They did thank everyone via microphone, but because the wedding was so poorly planned, (people were freezing on a mountain top, huddling together for warmth) there were many early departures. So I guess I don’t really know if they did a receiving line.
A person on a forum I visit laughed when I asked the question, “Do I do a receiving line, or go from table to table?” Although I thought it was rude to have scoffed at the question because the person who laughed had done both, it made me think: What IS right? Our ceremony venue will most likely be at our reception venue, so it doesn’t make sense to me to have both.
I had always envisioned thanking the guests table to table during the reception. This way we will enjoy the half hour we get to take pictures after the ceremony, and we will mingle with our guests and thank them for coming during our reception. Because what fun is a wedding without mingling?
How are you going to work the “Thank You for Coming” into your special day?
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i’ve been wondering about this too. i thought we’d do the line at the church after the wedding ceremony, but we only have 10 minutes to take pics after the ceremony so i don’t think there’s enough time for a line there.
maybe table to table will work better for us?
We actually greeted people as they came to the ceremony - I wasn’t interested in hiding away and making a grand appearance. Plus, we did all our pictures before and got to mingle during the cocktail hour. During dinner we hit some of the tables but it wasn’t organized, and dinner really flew by. We wouldn’t have gotten to eat anything if we had tried to say hello to everyone.
Overall I believe I talked to every person who was at the wedding. Plus I feel like our way we got to have more real conversations with people than a mandatory 3 minutes per table thank you.
Just keep in mind that things will really be a blur so it’s best to figure out ahead of time how to spend the most quality time with your guests. If you don’t you could easily go the whole night not realizing that you totally missed some guests.
We’re doing a receiving line as everyone exits the church. One reason, it’s the most efficient and another is that you get to great the people who actually came to the “important” part of the day (not just the lame-o’s that show up at the reception).
The usual thing in the weddings I’ve seen and what we did was… we did the receiving line at church, right after the ceremony… don’t know if it’s a midwestern, Korean thing or just specific to our church. Then we took some family/friends pictures at church while the guests headed to the reception & cocktail hour. We had done pictures before the ceremony though. Then during the reception while people were eating we went from table to table to say hi, (we were able to eat a little bit before walking aroung- wasn’t very hungry 
), then my DH said a thank you towards the end of the “program” before the dancing began. So we incorporated everything! Hope this helps!
It really depends on a lot of things, one major thing being your guest count. I have gone to a few 400-500 guest weddings, and the bride and groom did table visits. They barely got to all the tables, spent maybe 5 minutes at each, and did not get to enjoy any part of the reception at all because they were too busy doing table visits and then bouquet toss/garter/etc. inbetween.
I have also been to 150 persson weddings where the bride and groom said it was still difficult to get to all the tables.
That being said, I’m not sure what I’m doing yet, but I think we’ll do the receiving line and then mingle during cocktails and the meal more informally.
just table to table. i think it is a great, informal way of doing it. you get to mingle, dance a bit, work the crowd, show off your dress without having to worry about the three dozen other people standing in line. it’s also so much more personal. i hated going through receiving lines when i know that i am just going to hug the bride and shake the grooms hand and say congrats and be on with it. plus, you have to wait an extra 30 minutes to get through the damn thing!
We’re not going to do a receiving line mainly since everything’s going to be in the same place anyway. I think it would just look a bit forced. We’ll probably do some combination of table visits and miscellaneous mingling, but since our wedding is (hopefully!!!) going to be on the smallish side I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble getting to everyone!
It’s traditional in our circle to do the table to table thing. I think that’s mostly because generally our weddings are too large for a receiving line to be anything but totally inefficient. I like the idea of a receiving line, but with our guest list, I know if would just take WAY too much time. I considered a combination of both, but I just couldn’t figure out a way to get it done without making our guests wait around for inordinate amounts of time.
That said, we’re keeping with tradition and going from table to table. That way, we can get to everyone, and our guests wont have to wait in line for an hour just to say “hi” to us.
Everyone generally does the receiving line in our neck o’ the woods, so we’re sticking with that. Plus we don’t have assigned tables, and it’s a heavy appetizer reception, so people might be floating around and wouldn’t necessarily stay at one table if we tried to vist them that way.
Oh, I guess I should have mentioned we are having a sit down lunch meal. Whoops.
Due to korean tradition, I think we have to do both b/c the adults I know are used to having a receiving line after the ceremony..and I’m sure they would enjoy a table-to-table greet as well
At our wedding, we dismissed rows after the ceremony, so we got to greet each guest. At the reception, we tried to make it to all of the tables, but we kept getting caught up and also, we wanted to be able to dance and have fun. I think the guests were really understanding about it.
At a wedding I recently attended the brinde and groom dismissed everyone row by row at the church . Everyone got a hug from the couple and got to have a little bit of face time with them. It was nice because there wasn’t the confusion of everyone getting up at once and jamming into the lobby of the church.
We’re going to do a traditional receiving line. Our guest list is fairly small–about 125–so it won’t be too long to get everyone through. Plus, we’re not having assigned seats/tables and this is the best way to make sure we get to everyone. Then we’ll feel free to mingle at the reception
Jen and Katie, people weren’t offended about being dismissed? It sounds a lot like school or an assembly, or like waiting to get on the plane at an airport. I would do that, but we’re not having a church wedding, and the people will have assigned seats at the reception. Also, we need to take pictures between the reception and ceremony, and I feel I’d rather spend that time in between doing that. I’d rather our guests head to the reception (on the third floor of the ceremony site) right after, so we can do the picture thing, and then spend our time during the dinner to go table to table. I’ve never been in a receiving line, so I don’t know if it is a regional thing or not. Hm.
I have been to one wedding that did the dismiss by row thing. While it is a cute idea, I think it would work best for smaller weddings. The one I went to took forever, esp. since we were sitting towards the back. I was invited with “and guest”, so it was a bit awkward for my then -BF (now FI) having never met the bride and groom before to be hugging them.
Thanks for the opinion, Chrissie, it’s nice to hear another POV! Our wedding is about 150 people, so I don’t know if it would be a long receiving line, but I know it would really hold up things to be like, “Wait, I want to thank you all right now, but then we’re going to take pictures, so you have to wait for that, too.” I’d really rather do it table by table (15 tables in all, no biggie).
We didn’t go table to table or have a receiving line! Since we took our photos beforehand, we could enjoy our cocktail hour. We greeted, spoke to, and hugged every single one of our 251 guests during that hour, and we had a great time doing it! We drank and ate passed appetizers the whole time, and we were free to enjoy our dinner.
After the ceremony, we are going to go back in the sanctuary and dismiss the guests pew by pew, thanking each one. This is something that I have seen in almost every wedding I’ve gone to in the last several years. I don’t think this offends people in any way; in fact I quite enjoyed it because it was personal. We’re looking at having about 250-275 guests, so it might take a while. But we are taking ALL pictures before the ceremony so after we dismiss all the guests, the wedding party will hop in the limo and drive around for some time while the guests go to the reception site. We’ll also try to go table to table at the reception, of course, but doing the dismissal from the pews guarantees we will get to everyone.
We had a 100 person wedding (ceremony and reception in the same venue). We did not do a receiving line (we took pictues right after the ceremony during the cocktail hour). My husband and I had decided ahead of time that we would eat quickly as we were served first and we would great our guests by visiting each table. I was very nervous that we would be rushed or stressed but this actually worked out great. We really weren’t that interested in eating and we had plenty of time to spend with each table and I heard afterwards that our guests enjoyed that we came to each table to thank people for sharing our day with us, etc.
Jill, I think your scenario sounds most like what we’ll do, I’m glad to hear it all worked out okay. To be honest, I’m not so excited about the food- it’s the CAKE i want!!
in my close circle of friends, the couple went table to table, which was nice and plus gave us ample picture opportunity with them. the last one i went to the couple dismissed us by row which was cool [plus it was a small wedding so it didn't take long at all. maybe like 10-15 minutes...not really sure though since i was towards the front] AND they went table to table, except they didn’t make it to our table but we were all friends with the couple and would be hitting the town afterwards together so we were not heartbroken in the least bit.
we went to each table and it took us an hour with around 100 guests and 9 tables (not including ours). I didn’t have a chance to eat and it took up a lot of time, but I think the guests erally appreciated it… and it gave them all picture opps with us.
We’re doing table to table. Receiving line is an older tradition but you still don’t get much time with the people. You could do both if you had time for it, but a receiving line would be a waste for us…it’s alll at the same place. We’re taking pics prior to the ceremony and then a few afterwards so we can enjoy most of our cocktail hour. and then thank people during dinner.
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Mrs. Kiwi, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation in 06: 27, Bookkeeper
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, P.E. Teach/Coach @ private schools in LA
Engagement Date: March 31, 2006
Wedding Date: November 3, 2007
Venue: Radisson Hotel
About Me: I'm a bookkeeper who failed high school algebra. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, literally a street over from where I grew up with Mr. Kiwi, my honey of three years. We have a jumbo mini-dachshund (seriously, he's huuuuge), and we're planning an autumn themed wedding on a shoestring, paid for by ourselves. The wedding date is my late grandma's birthday, I needed her there somehow, and that seemed like the best way for us. I can't believe I'm a Bee! I couldn't be more proud!
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