Time between Ceremony & Reception

lisaremmes

So we are finding that since most Churches in the area have 4 o'clock masses on Saturday nights that we can only have a 2 o'clock ceremony. This means that there will be 3 hours between the Mass and the Reception. Has anyone done this or have input on this? Chruch/Venue are only about 10 mins apart. I think it will be great for recession line/ pictures/ hair makeup touch up but FI thinks its crazy to ask our guests to wait around for 3 hours... 

thanks! 

Karen's MOH

We moved our reception up to 5 pm to shorten the gap. Our church/hotels and reception are about 20 minutes apart so I figure, ceremony will be 2-3 (reallly slightly shorter but will have recieving line, exit, chatting), then people will go back to their hotels and relax for a bit. We have a shuttle bus that will begin the first round of pick ups at about 4:20, get the first round of people there 10-15 minutes early (the caterer suggested this). So, I figure it's really only about an hour for peope to kill. Almost everyone is OOT to they will have hotels to go to.

In my circle (ie a big Catholic family) this Catholic gap is really common and expected, so I'm not terribly concerned. Some of the churches I talked to also offered a 5:30 ceremony, I think, after the 4 pm mass. You could see if that's an option. I didn't want my reception to start so late. Plus, to be honest, it is nice to have extra time for pictures, although I DEF would ave avoided it if I could have.

BunsCheer03

Do you have OOT guests? Maybe a hotel they are staying at has a bar that you could recomend for guests to go to while they wait? My cousin did this for the time inbetween the ceremony and reception.

lewisc2002

my SIL did this and we didn't, but i think it would have been nice to have time between the ceremony and reception -we barely had time to breathe between one and the other. As a guest at my SIL's wedding, i appreciated the break - it gave us time to relax a little before the festivities. i think it should be fine.

starryeyed13

I went to a wedding that had this situation - we thought it would be a long wait, but by the time we all got out of the church, chatted in outside, got in our cars there wasn't that much time left.  We had just enough time to check into our hotel and get over to the venue.  it really wasn't a problem.  Some people that weren't staying overnight all went to a bar/restaurant down the street for a drink and then headed over.  You could always include a mention on the back of your program with a suggestion of things to do before heading over to the reception - a place to get a drink and a  local beach or place to check out the water view or something cape cod esque.