Engagement party times and hours?

Our engagement party started at 5pm and was about 3 hours long. It was held at Dave and Buster's in a conference room and after the party itself was over, everyone was handed a playing card and they stayed for as long as they wanted to.

We had tables at a local brewery I think from 1 to 4, and told people to just drop by. We wanted to be in between meals so we could get away with just a charcuterie style spread and cookies. If you're having a meal you should have a set start time, but if you want to be more casual, I think giving people a window of time to swing by makes sense.

We had our engagement party two months after the engagement and it was before Halloween so we had a "Love at First Fright" theme and made it a costume party.

We had it start at 7 pm and it fizzled out around 11:30 or so.

For food, we kind of did a mashup as it was at my parent's house. We had white chicken chili, meatballs, rye bread mini pizzas, and a homemade pumpkin edible arrangement, as well as some dips/veggies/chips, and cupcakes and custom cookies.

We just let people mingle, no games or anything. Played some music and had a bonfire. It went great!