Wedding drinks reception: how long, how much per guest, and ideas

Couples spend months choosing the dinner menu and a few minutes on the drinks reception. That is a mistake: it is the first hour when your guests are truly together, standing, glass in hand, and what they remember of it weighs heavily in their memory of the day. A good drinks reception does not need a huge budget; it needs good arithmetic and a bit of foresight.

Here is how to prepare it in order: how long it lasts, the quantities, what to serve, the plan B if the weather turns, and what to give guests to do while you are away having photos taken.

How long a drinks reception should last

The right length depends on what comes next. If a seated dinner starts at 8 pm, a reception that begins at 5:30 pm is comfortable. If it begins at 4 pm, guests have to last four hours before sitting down, and nobody lasts four hours on three canapés.

These are orders of magnitude, not rules. A summer afternoon reception makes people drink more water and cold drinks; the same reception on a November evening shifts demand towards hot drinks and wine.

How much to plan per guest

Drinks

The most useful calculation is in glasses, not bottles. Count three to four glasses per guest over two hours, split roughly like this:

• A glass and a half of sparkling wine (champagne, cava, prosecco, crémant): one 75 cl bottle pours six or seven flutes.
• A glass of signature cocktail or punch, served in a twelve to fifteen centilitre glass.
• One or two non-alcoholic drinks: water, juice, lemonade. Outdoors in summer, count more water than anything else.
• Optionally, a little well-chilled white or rosé: one bottle pours five or six glasses.

Take 80 guests and two hours as an example: between fourteen and twenty bottles of sparkling wine, about ten litres of punch or cocktail, and some fifteen litres of water, juice and soft drinks combined. Keep a margin of roughly a tenth, especially in summer: a sealed bottle can usually be returned, but a bottle you do not have cannot be conjured at 6 pm on a Saturday.

Canapés

A reception without enough to eat means guests drinking on an empty stomach and arriving at dinner already tired. The simple rule: eight to ten canapés per person for a classic two-hour format, five or six if dinner follows closely, fifteen to twenty for a cocktail dinner, sweet pieces included.

Vary textures rather than quantity: something cold and fresh (a verrine, a spoon, a roll), something hot (mini croques, little pies, fritters) and something substantial (a charcuterie and cheese board, mini skewers). Plan one or two real vegetarian pieces, not only raw vegetables: a guest nibbling carrot sticks for two hours remembers it.

What to serve: ideas that please everyone

• One signature cocktail named after the two of you, in an alcohol and an alcohol-free version: one, not five, so the bar keeps moving.
• A flavoured water station: a fountain with cucumber, citrus, mint, raspberries. Cheap, pretty on the table, and children love it.
• A board of products from your region, if you want a personal touch without cooking.
• An ice cream cart, sorbet or churros in summer; small cups of hot soup or mulled wine in winter.
• A food truck or a fresh produce stand (oysters, grill, cheese) if the venue allows it: it also moves the crowd around and breaks up bar queues.

The opposite trap exists too: trying to offer everything. Three cocktails, four spirits, six kinds of canapé, a crêpe stand. The wider the offer, the more staff you need and the longer the queues. Choose a few things, do them well, and serve them fast.

The running order, start to finish

1. Guests arriveDrinks are already poured: a tray of glasses at the entrance and people to hand them out. The first guests often arrive before you do, and it is better that they are not left ten minutes with nothing to drink.
2. The first toastsOnce everyone has a glass, a short word from the couple or a witness, three minutes at most. Then the crowd disperses and that is exactly the charm of the scene.
3. Group photosBrief the photographer and a friend who knows how to gather people. Group photos take time, and it is when you vanish from the reception. Fix them at a precise hour.
4. Hot piecesThey come out an hour in. If dinner is not far off, this is where stomachs get settled.
5. Moving to dinnerA clear signal (a bell, music, an announcement) fifteen minutes ahead. Guests need to finish their drink and find their seat.

Weather and plan B: decide beforehand

An outdoor drinks reception is one of the loveliest moments of the day, and the one the weather compromises most often. Rain, wind, but also heat: direct sun at 4 pm in July tires people more than a shower.

• Book a covered option before signing: a room at the venue, a marquee, a hired tent. For a hired tent, the price depends on size and location, and often runs from several hundred euros to over a thousand.
• Agree with the venue on a decision time, often the evening before or early that morning, and on one person who takes the call instead of you.
• Plan shade in summer: parasols, a pergola, trees, and cold water within reach. A reception in full sun turns into a race for the shade.
• In winter, think of blankets, outdoor heaters if the venue allows them, and a hot drink.
• Have a plan for shoes: heels sink in grass and gravel, and a small basket of flat shoes makes people very happy.

Entertainment: keep people busy without overdoing it

The reception is a moment of active waiting: guests chat until you are back from the photos. No show is needed, but background sound and one or two points of interest help.

• Background music: a soft playlist, or a live musician (guitar, saxophone, a jazz trio) if the budget allows.
• Simple lawn games: boules, molkky, giant wooden games. They keep children busy and give uncles something to do with their hands.
• A slideshow of photos of the two of you, as children or as a couple, on a screen or a wall: a little reading for guests who do not know each other.
• A photo corner with a simple backdrop and a few understated props: one more souvenir for guests, with no staff needed.
• A messages corner: cards, pens, a box. Some guests love it, others walk past, and that is perfectly fine.

The mistakes we see most often

• A bar with a single person behind it: the queue kills the atmosphere. Count one bartender for roughly thirty to forty guests, more if there are cocktails.
• Glasses nobody can find: put clean glasses near the bars, and a collection point for used ones away from the queues.
• No interesting alcohol-free drink: a jug of lukewarm water in a corner, and surprise that nobody takes any.
• Nowhere to sit: provide chairs for older guests, pregnant guests and anyone whose shoes hurt.
• Forgetting to feed the photographer, the DJ and the children: they are the first to run short of everything.

The budget, in orders of magnitude

The cost of a drinks reception varies enormously: the caterer, any alcohol you bring yourselves (depending on the venue’s corkage policy), glassware, staff. As a rough guide, a cocktail handled by a caterer often costs between ten and twenty-five euros per person depending on the package, and drinks are either added or included.

To cut the bill without making it feel poorer: one signature cocktail rather than several, a good sparkling wine without going to champagne, a limited number of well-chosen pieces, and carefully made alcohol-free drinks, which lower alcohol consumption without anyone noticing. Also check the wine merchant’s return conditions for unopened bottles.