Quote Originally Posted by Deil the Yin View Post
I just wanted to make a small suggestion regarding the "Cocktail Hour." In my experience, 30 minutes for a Cocktail "hour" is gonna seem WAYYYY too brief. My recomendation would be to start the gathering at 5PM with seating at 630. Not everyone will arrive at the same time, and it will give everyone plenty of time to make introductions and chat a bit. I really think anything less than an hour and a half will seem very brief for a cocktail hour. Two hours would be better I think, but it may seem too long for some folk and they'll arrive late anyway.
My experience with Burns Supper cocktail hours is the exact opposite; our organizing committee has found that if the cocktail hour is too long, then people start to leave before the Supper is over -- but then again, we are talking about general public types in SW Missouri, where they roll up the sidewalks at 9.30 pm!

T.