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Devoted October 2021

Bothered by Guests Leaving Early

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Tori, on October 27, 2021 at 11:20 PM

We got married almost 2 weeks ago. It was truly an amazing day! But seriously it flew by and of course now I'm just reliving the day in my head. One thing that bothered me was that so many of our guests left early.

We had around 75 guests. Our ceremony was 4:30-5:00 PM and cocktail hour right after. We did family photos and joined our cocktail hour, after I got bustled, around 5:30. 6:00 PM FH and I get introduced, first dance, and my mom's speech. Then dinner. We probably cut our cake around 7:15 PM and then did parent dances and people started leaving around 7:30-7:45. We had the venue until 10:30.

I'm kind of sad about it. The only factor that I think as to why is because our venue was considered out of town and was anywhere from 45 minutes to 4 hours away for people. We had a hotel and shuttle but even people staying at the hotel left early. We ended up with just 6 of us on the shuttle with around 40 people staying at the hotel. We had an open bar with beer and wine and seltzers and we had a DJ that played a variety of music. I guess it felt like people were just there to eat and dip out. Some didn't even say bye to me.
Did any of you all have a lot of guests leave Early? If so, did it bother you? Or am I just dwelling too much on something that shouldn't matter?

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Master May 2020
Kari · on June 30, 2022 at 11:09 AM
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We had a small wedding (postponed celebration due to Covid) with only 48 guests. Ceremony was at 4pm, dinner at 6pm, dancing started by 7:30pm. Most of our guests left by 9pm, and we had maybe a dozen still with us when we "shut down" at 10pm (a few of those chilled with us after until about 11pm). Our venue was 20 minutes from where we live and the majority of our guests were local (those that weren't stayed locally, only a few of the guests actually lived about 45 minutes in the other direction, but they were all older and we expected them to leave early). I was disappointed by how many left early, how few of our guests actually joined for dancing, and how loosely most of our guests interpreted the dress code. The guests were overwhelmingly on my husband's side (I grew up in a different state and many of my closest friends don't live locally and didn't travel) and he was less surprised than I was by the lack of engagement of our guests. Most of his friends just aren't fancy, dance-y people, and I guess I just didn't realize that until it was happening in front of my eyes. We had a few people eat and dash, but most mingled a little bit and did say bye to us before leaving. I did feel like between taking photos, my husband's constant pee breaks, and saying goodbye to people as they left early, we didn't end up with a whole lot of time to dance and actually enjoy our own party.

You are totally justified in feeling disappointed. I would try to focus on the people that did stick with you all night and who partied it up like you wanted. You can't really change what happened, and dwelling on it won't make you feel better. Just know you definitely aren't alone and many couples experience this with their weddings! Try to focus on the parts of your night that went well if you can.
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