What is a cocktail reception and how to go about it?

Amysarah I'll be booking a hall and not a 'venue' ;) At this stage it'll be the local one less than 200m away and from what I know about it already it should all be fine. Thanks though!

Thanks for the feedback Lulu, good to know that it *should* hopefully be less hassles this way.

I went to a ****tail reception last year. The wedding was in the church, then the bridal party disappeared for a few hours to get the photos done, then the reception was at the bride's parent's place (they'd won a prize home so it was a s**** house), they had the caterers at the house getting all the finger food organised while the ceremony was going on. Don't know what a lot of the guests did between the ceremony & the reception (coz I'm considered a member of the family I got to go to the house just after the ceremony).

The nibbles were a mix of hot and cold, with the caterers bringing around the food for a few hours. Still did the "traditional" stuff, like the introduction of the bridal party, bride & groom, speaches & cake. It was ****tail dress, which was great to dress up for.

We did the spit roast thing (bridal package) for our wedding at my brother's house. It was pretty good, funny thing is my brother did a trial run with them for his 60th a few months earlier (same venue) and that was better than the food they served for the bridal package.

Well i think everyone has given you pretty good advice so far. Catering is what i do for a job, its a family business and we specialize in weddings so if you would like to no anything particluar just pm me. As we are in the country pricing maybe a little cheaper here than Melbourne but we do alot of ****tail weddings but buffet type weddings are the most popular. ****tail weddings can be a little more expensive as there is a lot of work preparing the food, and usually the alcohol bill is alot more expensive as people seem to drink more at a ****tail wedding not sure why. We do alot of weddings where people want to keep the cost down and they usually choose to have light finger food when guests arrive then have a sit down buffet with the wedding cake (usually mud cake) as dessert served with cream and coulee. You dont need the traditional 3 course meal anymore. With having a buffet rather than a service to the table meal caterers can do it cheaper as they dont need staff for a long period of time, usually only for few hours to clear tables and clean up. Hope this helps a bit. Good luck

How fun Ash! ****tail receptions are fun, the last one I went to was in a winery with a jazz band.
Lulu's right though, I could have done with some more food. :P Still, it's very fun and glamourous.

How formal do you want it? Given my time again, I reckon I might do a picnic...that's just me though. :P

might be a bit far out for you - but have you considered your local "ethnic" clubs?

At most of these places you can get decent food (no one will go hungry!) plenty of alcohol (most of us ethnics like it ALOT ;) ) and a dj thrown in for a really good price. Or (as we are doing) we are loading up our laptop with hours of tunes :)

Thats what we are doing with ours - well, actually we are getting married in september this year and will have the reception next year - mummy (me) wants to party too!!!!

I'd love a picnic, honestly - that's very ashlea like - but you just can't count on the weather, so now we're going to do a spitroast type thing. It's also very us - when friends come and visit ash n ant we have a roast, and mudcake - or when ashlea had easter at her place, there was a roast, and three million desserts... i think it just "suits". I didn't really know what a ****tail party was but it's definitely not for us... :lol:

thanks for the info abb34!! thats really helpful, will keep you in mind for when i need to quiz someone!

ETA: Kitt3n there's not really much around here or it might have worked for us. I'll probably be doing the tunes as well, although im wondering if our alternative taste is going to be too much for a wedding :lol: I like the thought of a semi-punk themed wedding but i just can't part with classy either ;)
Love the idea for the mummy partying, good one!!

ash, maybe check out local cover bands - if you get a decent band, they'll play music that is suitable for the oldies earlier in the night, and move to more "ash n ant" stuff later...

lol - aj when we start putting together our music list its going to have everything from Tom Jones to nine inch nails to lamb to rod stewart to aphex twin. Bit of Mozart while we eat.

we have such a diverse family/friend network that there will be tumes for everyone - and i am sure some people will just walk out of the room for some! I dont care!!

Its going to be the party of all parties :)

Are you sure you dont have anything around? A greek/russian/jugoslav/polish club?

We did a wedding not long ago that had all there music on an ipod play through the pa system, but what they did was when they sent out the invites they had an extra piece of paper for you to request 2 songs to be played at the reception, so they had music for everyone, paper was attached to the rsvp so they recieved music in plenty of time before reception. Worked really well.

abb that is an awesome idea, so going to use that!!!!

our bonbonierre (sp??!!) is going to be a double CD of music from the night

Kitt3n -Well the requests will be an awesome idea then your guests will really feel apart of your celebration.

Oh I really like that idea, really, really like it!

Glad i could help, will have a think about anything else you can use. Have done over 100 weddings now and some ideas are fab, but you learn alot more of what not to do. Alcohol can put a major damper on some weddings if not controlled properly and guests can get out of hand if they have drank too much and not eaten enough so i suggest you have food served early on in reception as it will not only fill there bellys but will keep your alcohol bill down.

abb - df's family is polish . mine is serbian.

nothing will keep the alcohol bill down!

Oh, that part I didn't mention... i doubt we'll do alcohol. Apart from champagne of course, not sure what else. We're looking to have it cheap and I don't see the necessity for alcohol at a wedding. Maybe I'm weird anyway, it depends how many people come and how the rest of it goes ot budget, but at this rate there'll only be champagne for toasts.

It is a personal choice and your day so go with what you want. You can also go with guests pay for ther own alcohol.

Kitt3n lol good luck then

OMG, really?
As long as you are not serving spirits, it wont be too much to do beer and wine. Red, white, light and heavy beers.

You can get cleanskin wines from some bottleshops and its cheaper without having to serve metho. I got a DIVINE local Champers cleanskin and we printed our own labels. It looked great.

P.S Im tipping you guys aren't Irish...

We're undecided. I'd be happy to do beer and wine but with spirits then it gets too much, i think, i don't know. My friends 21st that had 120 guests (big italian family) spent $1500 on alcohol and still had more than half left over, so when I look at it like that it's probably not too much more to include.
I need to make myself a new folder with a bunch of maybe yes no heaps of things in it. Im feeling overwhelmed already! :rofl:

ETA: lol no not irish... but have not inviting many drinkers... of the sixty so far on our guest list almost half are family that wont drink, ten kids... when i look at it that way providing alcohol doesnt look like a big deal. Thanks for making me think :rofl: