I had those same thoughts (regarding leaving before everyone else had left the reception), but my experience has been different. I didn't have anyone this past year that seemed put off with me leaving when I felt I had covered everything.

I just got tired of working 12+ hours at every wedding when I didn't really need to be there that long. Combine that with the fact that we still basically have to undercharge for our time, and it's not a good thing. Now I'm managing all expectations before the wedding day, and it works great.

The first thing clients always ask me is the price, and the second thing they ask me is how long will I stay at the reception. My contract states the reception coverage is up to four hours. Got burned before on a wedding where the reception went from 2 PM until after midnight. The job was two and a half hours away from home. Talk about a long night.

Now I tell them the package includes four hours of reception beginning no longer than one hour after the ceremony ends. I will stay longer at times depending on what all hasn't happened yet, but after a certain hour, there's nothing to film that will make the final video anyway.

What do you charge for the edit and on to final delivery or is this in the day rate.
If you shoot for 10hrs that's 10hours capture with tape and all the editing that will come with it. So how long is your turn around on these weddings to client, how many hrs editing and final DVD master?

Too right, for every extra hour your filming, thats another tape, another hour to capture, another hour of footage to sive through and another hour to fit into the edit.

Yes, another tape is another hour of capture. I usually capture to one computer while working on another, so it's not that much of a drain on my time. Personally, when quoting prices I take all of the process into account: prep time, setup time, filming time, travel time, capture time, edit time, printing time... there's lots that goes into the final product. I try to reasonably estimate how long the edit will take based on the number of hours of filming, and give a quote based on my guess. You win some, you lose some.

That said, even when clients request that I stay longer than I normally would to catch the grand exit or something, I know that I won't be using 95% of the footage that I could take between the last scheduled event (like bouquet toss) and the exit. I bet I leave 95% of dancing footage on the cutting room floor, so to speak.

For turnaround time, I try to have a wedding "trailer" or "highlights" edited by the time the couple gets back from the honeymoon... around a week. Then the final deliverable is a usually a couple months later, depending on my workload.