Hello,
I lurk on this board sometimes, but am early in the planning process, so I haven't gotten too deep. But I need some advice....
My FI and I are getting married early next October on a Saturday night. Its still daylight savings, so sunset isn't until about 6:45pm (I'm told "jewish sunset" is later). We had planned on having my cousin, a cantor, officiate our wedding. Ketubah signing, ceremony, cocktails, reception....that's the timeline.
However, sadly, my cousin has relapsed in illness and her prognosis is not good. We are all very upset by this and hope that she makes it through her surgery and recovery. Obviously we all want her to focus on herself. However, we are trying to be realistic and are looking into a contigency plan in case she is not up to the task or too sick next year.
We contacted our Rabbi, who is available for our date. However, he will not leave his home on Saturday until approximately 7:15ish pm. Travel time to our venue is probably 20 minutes or so without traffic or delays. He has said he could start the ketubah signing at 7:45 ish, and then moving quickly, we could start the ceremony around 8pm. However, this puts cocktails at 8:30pm and dinner/reception not starting until 9:30pm. I hate to make people eat that late at night, and I doubt people will want to stay until 1:30am. Plus, there is the possibility of having to pay our vendors overtime to stay that late. I don't think our venue has a curfew though.
One options we were presented was doing cocktails first. However....in addition to not wanting people to be tipsy during the ceremony, we are having the ceremony and reception in the same space. So there would be approx 30 minutes where our guests would have nothing to do while they turn the space over. So, cocktails 2.0?? What do I do??
Im considering finding another officiant who is more lenient about start times, but they would be a stranger...
I appreciate all advice!! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this long post.
Cara