May 2014 Weddings

Ceremony Time?

I'm just curious to hear what time every one is doing their ceremony and your motivation (if any) behind choosing that time of day.  We are doing an evening wedding.  The sun sets around 830 that time of year here so our ceremony will start at 7.  We both love this time of day (we also love early morning but didn't figure our guests would appreciate a 7am wedding).  We have a venue with huge windows and we're hoping for nice lightening from a beautiful day.


Re: Ceremony Time?

  • Our ceremony is at 2:30. We are getting married in a Catholic church and they have Saturday evening Mass so that's the latest they will let us have our ceremony.
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  • Our ceremony is at 6pm on a Friday night (but we might not actually start till about 6:15, just to give guests some extra travel time).  Both the ceremony and reception are at the same place, so cocktails & dinner will follow right after the ceremony.
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  • Our ceremony is at 2:30. We are getting married in a Catholic church and they have Saturday evening Mass so that's the latest they will let us have our ceremony.
    I'm in this boat too.  3pm full mass.  It's the latest time slot they offer.  They have Saturday night mass which starts at 5.  They also offer a 1pm time slot but that would make too large of a gap.
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  • We're doing 5:30 ceremony overlooking a vineyard (about half an hour long), and then our guests will go on a half hour tour of the winery and start cocktail hour while we spend an hour doing photos. We'll join them for the last half of cocktail hour, and then dinner reception at 7:30 or so.


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  • @pumpkinsandturkeys I LOVE that idea of having a winery tour! Very original ... and it gives your guests something else to do to fill some time. I know a lot of our guests will probably be sitting in their hotel room (for at least a little time) waiting for cocktail hour and hor d'oeuvres start :(

    Our ceremony is at 2pm and cocktails start at reception venue at 4:30pm / dinner at 6pm. We picked the middle of the afternoon, because the chapel we are renting could rent it out for another wedding that day (they reserve 2 hour blocks with 1/2 in between). Meaning someone would have to book a wedding at 11:30am for us NOT to be able to get in early to decorate. If that makes sense...

  • @kellibastien Thanks! We loved the idea as soon as the winery offered it to us. Our wedding is so small that all of our guests can probably go on the tour as one group, which is awesome. They gave us the option of wine/cheese tastings, too, but with cocktail hour afterward, we didn't see the need (and it saves us some money!). Are there any little museums or cute shopping/historical districts nearby that you could maybe recommend to your guests as a sort of sightseeing tour inbetween the ceremony and reception? Where I am, we have a lot of waterfront areas that have boardwalks and carousels, etc. that are cute and fill up some time.


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  • I love the idea of the winery tour also. That is a great option for the guests to do while taking pictures. We were thinking of offering that to our guests as something to do on Friday before the wedding since most people will be coming in on Thursday and Friday and wedding isnt until Saturday. We are thinking of starting our ceremony around 6:30pm ish since the sun sets around 7:30-8:00. 
  • I'm having a Friday evening wedding.  Ceremony at 530, cocktail hour 6, reception at 7 - all being held at the same place.  
  • We are looking at about 3:30pm for ceremony.  Which will only last about 15 minutes, and then we will have lawn games set up so our guests can play games during cocktail hour while we get our photos taken.  Then dinner will be at 5pm.  That is the tentative time schedule.  We may change the ceremony time to 4:30 which would move everything by an hour, but I don't know.  I'll figure it out! lol
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  • We are having a 7pm evening wedding on a Sunday. Ceremony and reception in same place. It's a holiday weekend so no work on Monday for most of our guest.

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  • We are having a 4 pm start, 20 minute ceremony. Cocktail hour while we take pictures than hopefully dinner to start around 530. 
    We are having a Sunday wedding, so we figured a later start would be better for our guest if they wanted to go to church that morning. 

    I love the idea of games for the guest on the lawn. We have a balcony area that would be great to put some games out there!! Thank you for the advice @Kristen625
  • @msdidanato No problem!  FI and I met at a friends house where on Monday nights we hang out, bbq, drink, and play games.  Our friend has a light up bocce ball game that is just awesome to play in the dark.  So we are doing lawn games as a kind of homage to how we met :)
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  • How fun!!!! 
  • An outdoor ceremony at 6pm. We would prefer a little later, but it didn't work with the venue. At least at that time the bugs won't be too awful (yay Florida) and there will be a nice breeze since it's on a 4th floor terrace.
  • I think we are having our ceremony at 6 pm.

    We are getting married and having our reception in the same space, which will allow us lots of time for pictures/mingling with guests. I'm kind of annoyed at FI because he doesn't want to do a cocktail hour (he's being cheap), but IMO it won't flow well to go straight from ceremony into reception festivities.
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  • @bellaluna290 are you able to fill the cocktail hour with something else, like lawn games?  We are happening to have both because our reception venue includes the bar.  I do understand your FI hesitation on the cocktail hour because booze gets expensive quick.  Maybe look into having a bunch of flavored non alcoholic drinks available, like lemonade, flavored water, punch, etc.  Then save the booze for the dinner.  Idk, just a suggestion.  :)
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  • @Kristen625 Unfortunately we aren't able to do that. We are getting married at a restaurant (top floor with 4 rooms) in the city and there isn't a lawn for days :) We likely will end up doing the cocktail hour because it just makes sense to me. Depending on the number of guests that we will have, it shouldn't cost too much. 
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  • @bellaluna290 Well the venue sounds really nice!  What city is it in?  I find city weddings to be so glamorous.  Which is soooo not me lol.  That is why we are having an outdoor garden wedding, cause we are casual type people :)
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  • We are having a 7pm evening wedding on a Sunday. Ceremony and reception in same place. It's a holiday weekend so no work on Monday for most of our guest.

    Same here. Mine starts at 6:30pm, may actually starts at 6:45pm. Cocktail hour starts at 7:30pm, so the guests can enjoy the sunset at the rooftop. Everything is held in the same place in the middle of NYC.
  • Our ceremony is at 10am. The reason is that we're having a cruise/destination wedding. We're getting married on the first stop of our cruise in Key West and want our guests that will be there to have a little bit of a chance to see the island. We're having some sort of reception when we return from the cruise for the guests that weren't able to attend. That will be in June (don't want it to be too far out from our wedding day)
  • Our ceremony is at 4.  Cocktail hour 5-6, dinner around 6:15, and party until 1.  It's pretty typical for my area.
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  • were having ceremony and reception at the same location.our ceremony will be about 4 pm.Its a museum that has several dinosaur(trex,triceratops etc)so instead of a cocktail hour ,our guests will be able to tour the museum(no cost to them) until reception and that will start around 6
  • My ceremony starts at 5:30. Cocktail hour is from 6-7 and then reception is from 7-11. There will also be an after party at the lounge/bar upstairs that is open until 2:00 for those that want to party later (everything is in one location)
  • Morning ceremony and noon reception for us. The venue we chose wasn't available Saturday so we chose the next day Sunday and out of respect for our guests since the wedding is out of town we chose morning should anyone decide they want to travel home on Sunday too. Many family members are staying longer with us but we didn't want to inconvenience anyone to take off work or school.
    -anjo (aka the future mrs miley :)


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