What is a wedding reception timeline?

A wedding reception timeline is the list of everything that happens at the reception, in order, with a start time and a length for each step. A typical wedding reception timeline covers the cocktail hour, the couple's entrance, the first dance, the toasts, dinner, the cake, the dancing and the last song.

The same document is also called a wedding reception itinerary, an order of events or a run of show. Write it in two versions:

• The full version goes to the venue, the caterer, the band or DJ, the photographer and anyone giving a toast.
• The guest version is a few key times on a schedule card or the wedding website. Guests only need to know when to be where.

The sample on this page is a seated dinner for 70 guests after a 5:00 pm ceremony. Treat its times as a planning example and confirm them with your venue and caterer. For the hours before the reception, see the wedding day timeline, hour by hour. For a blank copy, the free wedding day timeline template has a column for your own times and works as a wedding reception timeline template.

The order of events at a wedding reception is cocktail hour, the couple's entrance, first dance, welcome toast, dinner with toasts between courses, cake cutting, parent dances, open dancing and a send-off. In a sample evening reception, cocktail hour starts at 5:45 pm, dinner at 7:20 pm and dancing at 10:00 pm, and the music stops at midnight.

This wedding reception order of events uses the sample's times. For a different start, move every row by the same amount.

Toasts sit between the two courses in this sample. For who gives them and what to say, see the wedding toast guide.

A wedding reception lasts about five hours: Inside Weddings magazine bases its timeline advice on a five-hour reception that opens with the cocktail hour. A sample evening reception with a midnight curfew runs longer: five hours and 15 minutes from the couple's 6:45 pm entrance, or six hours and 15 minutes with the cocktail hour.

The end is fixed by the venue's music curfew, which is midnight at most destination venues, so check the contract before you set any other time. The ceremony time sets the start: after a 2 pm or 3 pm ceremony, the reception runs longer, from 4 pm to midnight. A 10 am or 11 am ceremony is followed by a lunch reception, with guests leaving by 4 pm.

Cocktail hour at a wedding should be a full hour, according to Inside Weddings magazine, especially when the ceremony and the reception are in different spaces. In a sample timeline with a 5:00 pm ceremony, cocktail hour lasts 60 minutes, from 5:45 pm to 6:45 pm, and ends when guests are called through to dinner.

• Guests walk over when the ceremony ends at 5:30 pm and have drinks and canapés.
• The couple takes 15 minutes alone at 5:45 pm, then has family portraits at 6:00 pm in golden-hour light.
• At 6:45 pm guests move to the reception space, with 15 minutes to find their seats before the first dance at 7:00 pm.

The Emily Post Institute names photographs as the usual hold-up after the ceremony and advises offering drinks and hors d'oeuvres to guests who are kept waiting. To work out how much to pour, use the wedding alcohol calculator.

A four-hour wedding reception timeline, counted from the first dance, runs from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm: a seated dinner with toasts, the cake and one hour of dancing. With the cocktail hour and the couple's entrance before it, the same evening lasts five hours and 15 minutes, from 5:45 pm.

This is the sample reception from this page with an 11:00 pm finish, which suits a Friday or Sunday wedding, when guests want an earlier night and a workable morning flight. A small wedding of under 40 guests can open the dance floor by 9:45 pm.

A wedding reception timeline runs later with more guests and earlier with fewer, because a larger group moves more slowly between spaces. For 120 guests or more, add 20% to each transition. For fewer than 40 guests, take 15% off. The sample times here assume 70 guests.

To rebuild the schedule around your own ceremony time and reception length, use the wedding day timeline generator.

The wedding order of events is guest arrival, ceremony, cocktail hour, reception entrance, first dance, dinner and toasts, cake, dancing and send-off. In a sample day with a 5:00 pm ceremony, guests arrive at 4:30 pm, the ceremony lasts 25 to 40 minutes, and the reception fills the evening from 5:45 pm to midnight.

The ceremony has its own order: processional, welcome, readings, vows, rings, pronouncement, kiss and recessional.

The schedule below shows the whole sample day at a glance, from breakfast to the dance floor, written on the 24-hour clock (19.00 is 7:00 pm). It is a summary, and two of its reception times are looser than the step-by-step table above (cocktail hour from 17.30, dinner through 21.00). Work from the table.