Vegas: Reception or no reception

As a guest who would be traveling for your wedding, I would expect more than appetizers and cake. You should provide a full meal too. Your family might not dance and party, but what about your fiance's family?

You need to host a full dinner and everyone needs to be invited to the party bus/bar hop festivities. You can't decide who will or won't go. It needs to be an open invitation and people will either accept or decline.

Why not just go to a restaurant afterwards? We did this for my first wedding, in 2005.

We had a lovely ceremony at the Monte Carlo (for $675, I think spending $10,000 is absolutely insane. Prices can't have gone up that much!) and then hosted a reception at their Italian restaurant. It was about $60pp and included two salads, pasta, pizza, and entree, and dessert. We invited guests back to our hotel suite for cake and champagne afterwards.

Then when we came home we had a second reception (no ceremony) for those guests who were unable to attend the destination wedding. It was a lot of fun. Some guests came to both.

We are having a "reception" back in our suite afterwards. We are just ordering some food from a nearby restaurant and going to the liquor store first. Most people coming to Vegas (honestly) want to party (aside from family and even then....) We are doing a cabana the next day since it's not a formal "sit down" dinner. It's Vegas you don't have to do the normal wedding thing.... I've seen brides say they are getting a party bus after. My sister got married in Vegas and we went to a buffet after with all you can drink beverages included. Do what you love and have fun with it!!!

It's not really a matter though of "doing what you love and having fun with it," it's a matter of making sure your guests are properly taken care of and hosted. This whole scenario also depends on how many guests are being included. For yours, this could be okay for like 15 guests, but not, say, 100.

If you're having a destination wedding where everyone is traveling, taking time off, and spending a lot of money to come witness your celebration, then you need to at least offer them dinner and something to do for longer than a couple hours. That's really more so the point of this post. Really doesn't matter that it's "Omg Vegas!" People still need to be properly hosted.

Actually I'm pretty sure LITERALLY what a wedding is for is what the couple getting married love. You can still host while doing something you love and others joining you. Vegas is a bit different of a destination wedding then most other places and I have more then 50 people who are coming who are actually excited because "OMG VEGAS" .

And I'm actually pretty sure LITERALLY what a reception is for is to thank your guests for coming to celebrate your day. You can absolutely do the wedding itself however the heck you want, but you need to be accommodating of your guests for the RECEPTION. And, again, just because it's VEGAS doesn't mean you can get away with not accommodating your guests. I hope your hotel suite and your cabana are humungous so all 50+ of your guests aren't crammed in there or left out because they can't fit.

I promise you do not need to worry about what we want for OUR wedding. I was replying to the OP to give other ideas as well as asking if she looked around because she can get a very nice wedding and reception for under $10k in Vegas.

If you don't like we we are doing for OUR wedding you do not need to respond. You can go ahead and move along. I'm not really concerned about what you think.

You can skip the dancing and stuff but you still need to feed them dinner. You can get the extra package or you can all head to a restaurant afterwards.

I was looking at this package, too! But it was ultimately out of our budget. I found the other hotels on the strip offered more bang for your buck, but all ended up being too much money without enough food/cake/etc for how much they cost- we found a place just off the strip. I think a full meal would be better, but I totally understand where you are in your thinking after seeing so many packages that just include a cocktail reception. It wasn't until I cam on here that I was informed that h’orderves aren't considered enough.

I think what you're doing sounds great- especially since guests are likely to expect something like this in Vegas! Quite a few of the strip resorts offer an in-suite reception, so I really don't think it's a problem. I loved the venues and Mandalay Bay- they were so beautiful, but the food ended up being too much so I picked somewhere just off-strip. I love the venue I picked, but I really wanted it to be on the strip. Come back and post pictures for sure!

Thanks!!! We are pretty excited about it!!! We actually found a deal for MB which is the only way we are getting married there lol!!! But I definitely would recommend shopping around the strip a little more. My sister got half priced buffet tickets for Mirage and that was actually pretty nice and you can still sit down with your party.

I spent 6 months calling every resort and was just not a fan of what we got for the money. Mostly because the a lot of the packages are tiered and the cutoff is like 0-50, 51-100 people and we were teetering between 50 and 52, and we didn't want to cross over into the way more expensive tier. After we booked our venue, we found out that my uncle is paying for our honeymoon (!!!), but we had already made the nonrefundable deposit, so we're stuck there! It's a beautiful venue inside and not, just not on the strip lol. Had we known in advance, our budget would have been bigger and we may have booked something on the strip. We are having the bachelorette/bachelor party the Friday before (wedding is on a Sunday) and the rehearsal dinner the Saturday before both on the strip, so close enough! Which location in MB did you pick for the ceremony??

Oh that stinks! Which location did you pick? My sister used chapel of the flowers and it was beautiful and has amazing outside pictures too!

That's what we are planning on doing, bachelor/bachelorette on Saturday, rehearsal Sunday and wedding on Monday! We are between about 42-45 so right under the cut off lol!!! We were really up in the air for a while between the beach and valley of the falls but ultimately landed on valley of the falls and I'm so glad we did the more I look at it haha!!!

You don't need to do a big party with a DJ and dancing, but you do need to serve a full dinner. Just hors d'oeuvres are not enough.