Wedding - would you be happy

[GreenGiants]

Small wedding - 17 guests (including bride and groom).

Wedding will be in a hotel and will be at 3pm

Following the ceremony guests will be moved to a private function room within the venue and will be greeted with a drinks reception (glass of champagne each)

At 5:30 there will be a three course dinner

The private function room is hired by us until midnight (of course we wouldn't expect anyone to stay that long)

We would possibly provide nibbles/buffet at 8pm? And play music from a playlist

Would you expect drinks during the evening to be paid by bride and groom?

The venue is about an hour drive and guests will be paying for their own room

(Unsure if I've missed any other detail)

Does this sound nice or shit? What else could be included? (I feel live music is too much for a small group)

Sounds a lovely wedding OP. Evening drinks to be paid for by your guests.

We did something very similar. We did canapes after the 3pm ceremony, with welcome drink. Then had the meal at 6pm, we payed for a few bottles of wine for the table, plus a few bottles of beer as we knew some of our guests wouldn't want wine. Anyone who wanted more bought a dink or two after, though the drinks we had pre-payed for lasted a while. We didn't do food later on in the evening, though did have a doughnuts instead of a wedding cake so a couple of people ate them later and most took one home, we were all pretty full after the meal. We ended up staying till almost midnight, chatting with our family. Was lovely and just what we wanted.

I have been to a wedding where all the drinks were paid & everyone just got uproariously drunk to get the value from it. Spoiled the mood a little as it was all about the boozing

Our wedding was similar time-wise.

Ceremony at 3pm, drinks at reception venue, 3 course dinner nearer to 6pm (we had speeches before the meal) then bacon butties, cups of tea and coffee (for those who wanted a brew) and wedding cake slices (spectacular chocolate cake!) at 10pm.
Went down a storm!

After the meal we basically got a round of drinks for everyone then it was pay for your own for the rest of the evening.
That's the usual thing round here.

For a wedding party that small personally I’d probably skip the canapés and buffet, just do a drinks reception and the meal and use the money saved to pay for all drinks. It seems to me that it might be much more fun and intimate given the group size to treat it as a very grand dinner instead of trying to do the whole traditional reception thing?

candle that's basically what we did: a very nice meal with pre dinner drinks .

Your wedding plans sound lovely and elegant.
I would also do drinks and canapes on arrival (maybe a seasonal cocktail rather than fizz?), dinner at 6 then cheese board at 9.30-10ish.

I would expect to pay for my drinks after dinner and if I had more than one or two at the drinks and nibbles. If you could stretch to it, you could offer a 'night cap' near the end of the night or port with the cheese board.

I think if I was invited to a wedding of that size, it would be someone I was very close to so I expect I would buy a round of drinks for the whole group. My close friends/family would be likely to do this as well so we would probably have each family/couple buying a full round and singles pair up to split a round. But it depends on your crowd.

It sounds like you are going to have a beautiful day.

Thanks @dylanthedragon

That pretty much sums it up! It's both our immediate families and each of our best friends and partners.

I was so worried it would look a bit sad and boring with such a small group but you've all done a really good job of reassuring me!

Thank you