Guides
Cocktail hour looks like a music decision and it is really a logistics one. The hour exists because two things are happening at once that guests cannot watch: the couple is being photographed, and the reception room is being reset from ceremony seating to dinner tables.
Which means the sound has to happen somewhere else. A courtyard, a lobby, a lawn, a bar. Somewhere that frequently has no sound system, no soundcheck, and nobody scheduled to be standing in it. That is the actual problem, and choosing songs does not touch it.
Cocktail hour is the one part of a wedding where the music has to work in a space nobody has soundchecked, which is why the format matters more than the songs do.
One hour is standard. Planner Reicks-Sturgill, quoted by The Knot, puts it at one hour, extendable to an hour and 15 minutes or an hour and a half. Stretching it is often recommended when the couple skips a first look and needs more photography time after the ceremony.
Almost every wedding has three separate acoustic problems, and people plan for one of them.
| Space | What the music has to do | What usually goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Ceremony site | Carry to the back row without amplifying anybody’s vows | Venue rules limit what can be amplified here at all |
| Cocktail space | Fill an open or outdoor area at conversation volume | No system, no power nearby, and nobody assigned to it |
| Reception room | Dinner background, then a full dance floor | Nothing, usually. This is the one everybody plans |
The middle row is the whole article. If the band has already loaded in, an acoustic setup in the courtyard costs nothing extra to arrange. If your music booking starts at dinner, that hour has no plan and somebody ends up pairing a phone to a portable speaker twenty minutes before guests arrive.
Works indoors, in a room with walls. A drum kit has a floor volume below which it cannot go, so in a small courtyard the kit sets the level for everything and conversation gets harder.
Built for talking over. Less reach outdoors in wind or across a large lawn, so it needs the space to be reasonably contained. Our version puts Sonny on percussion instead of the full kit for exactly this reason.
Sometimes, and it is worth asking directly rather than assuming. Several venues own a good system and publish that it is not for bands. Tuscan Hall in Austin states that its in-house system is free to use and that you can connect a laptop to it, but that professional bands and DJs will need to bring their own sound systems. That is a normal policy. It is also usually about the reception room, and the cocktail space may have no coverage at all.
The question splits into four, covered properly in house sound system or band-provided PA.
Then place it in the hour-by-hour timeline, because the length of this hour is what absorbs every delay earlier in the day.
One hour is standard. Planners extend it to 75 or 90 minutes when there is no first look and the couple’s photographs have to happen after the ceremony. It is also the part of the day that absorbs any delay, so it is worth agreeing a maximum as well as a length.
Sometimes, and it is not safe to assume. It is usually a different space and a different format from the dance sets, so ask whether the quote covers it and what the band actually plays during that hour before you compare it to any other quote.
Often only for a phone or a laptop. At least one Austin venue publishes that its in-house system is free for a device but that professional bands and DJs must bring their own. Cocktail hour also frequently happens in a space the house system does not reach.
Ask about the setlist, the show, or what we need from your venue. If you want a date looked at, I can send it straight to the band.