Wedding Reception Forum

As a guest which would you prefer?

edited April 2016 in Wedding Reception Forum

Hello,

I’d love some advice from an unbiased “guest” point of view. We are getting married in October and found a great venue. It’s the perfect size, budget, “look”, location, etc. (It’s a hall where pretty much all of the set up type work would be done by us/outside vendors, for clarification in the rest of my post).

In my ideal world, we would be able to get into the space earlier in the day to decorate and set up. Then our ceremony would be late afternoon/early evening with a full dinner-type reception starting right after in the same space. However, community members have first dibs on the space in the morning/afternoon and apparently this venue can only guarantee us that we will be able to use the space from 4:30onwards. They will be able to tell us in July if we can use the space earlier in the day. Obviously, if this happens, my ideal of a late afternoon/early evening ceremony with reception right afterwards won’t work. 

We will know in July either way and there will be about 3 months to make alternative plans. Both of us and our families have different opinions and things to consider, but I’d like to know the guests’ point of view. So, if you were a guest, which option would you prefer?

  1. Have the ceremony in the late afternoon but at a different location. I don’t have a specific location in mind yet, but assume the ceremony location would be about 10-25 minutes away from the reception location. The reception would also continue as planned as a full dinner (time stays roughly the same, but location changes).

  2. Have the ceremony and reception in the same location but start the ceremony later in the evening, like 7 or 8, and have an appetizer and dessert type reception. Assume the time/invitations would make it clear that a full dinner will not be provided so that no one will show up starving, and that we will have plenty of appies available (location stays the same, but the time/type of reception changes). 

I guess a third option would be to find another venue, but since this one meets all of our other criteria, I’d rather not do that. 

Now, we might find out in July that we can have our venue earlier in the day as hoped and everything will work out as planned in my ideal world. But my brain likes to plan and if it can’t plan it starts to stress, so I’d love to have an idea of the preferred alternative just in case….to ease my brain.

Thanks for your opinions!

Re: As a guest which would you prefer?

  • SP29SP29 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    Honestly, as long as you are not providing a gap, hosting your guests throughout the wedding, and the in the second case, the ceremony does not start until 7pm or later (so guests know it is past meal time), either is fine.

    Myself, I would enjoy having dinner with my friends/family and celebrating the B&G with an earlier ceremony+reception, but that does not entitle me to receive this type of event.

    As for the decoration.... how much decorating are we talking here? Even if you get into the venue at 4:30pm, will you have time to decorate, get your hair/MU done (I guess you could do this earlier in the day and then set up), get dressed and then get to ceremony?
  • Perfect! Thanks for your opinion! 

    As for decorating, there won't be much at all. But regardless, all of the set up and decorating will be done by hired help and the catering company (so no worries about timing with my hair and makeup). I know someone who was a day of wedding coordinator at this location in the past so she has a good idea of decoration/set up timing. 
  • SP29SP29 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    Oh, hired help, all the better!

    In that case, depending on how long set up takes (they should be able to give you a time frame), you could do a 5:30 or 6pm ceremony and move straight into dinner, if that's something you still wanted to do.
  • I like @SP29's idea. I prefer to drive my car to one location for the ceremony and reception.

  • Thanks for the suggestion but I'm pretty sure set up (and extra contingency time) will be more than an hour or so. It would be unlikely I'd be able to start the ceremony at this location until 7ish. 
  • SP29SP29 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    That's fine.

    I do agree, it is nice to have ceremony and reception in one location, although not a requirement. In your case though, having the ceremony at a different location would only save you the half hour + travel on start time, as you would still need to wait for the venue to be set up. In which case, you would be into dinner hour, so 6pm ceremony, half hour travel, start with dinner right away at 7pm. You could do a 5pm ceremony if you can host cocktail hour at the ceremony site, if you wanted time to do some photos after the ceremony. But again, with a 5pm ceremony, you would need to serve dinner.

    Similarly, if a dinner reception is something you'd like to do, you could still have a 7pm ceremony followed by dinner. Nothing wrong with a later dinner, though I would not do a cocktail hour in this scenario, and I would state "dinner reception to follow", as you are starting to get into a grey area.

    However, as long as the ceremony is later (past the dinner hour), I don't think there is anything wrong with a cocktail style reception (I would still expect apps). I liken it to meeting up with friends on a Saturday night at 8 or 9pm. We usually still get food of some sort (or food is provided if at someone's house- enough that no one is hungry), and we stay out (or over) until midnight-2am. More than enough time to celebrate.


  • edited April 2016
    As a guest, either option would be fine with me. Fifteen to twenty minutes travel time between ceremony and reception is reasonable. It would also be nice to have a 7:30 dinner reception, if that's what you'd like to do.
                       
  • 7pm ceremony followed by dinner, because that is squarely dinner time to me. Why isn't this an option in your original list? I'm going to spend 5-7 getting ready and getting to the place, I'm not eating dinner at 4:30. 
  • Since you're using hired help and not a lot of decoration is needed I'd plan it all at that venue with a 630 start time and dinner right after. 

    Does the the venue have separate spaces for ceremony and reception or is it all in the same room?
  • It's all in the same room. 

    Thank you everyone. You've provided a lot of good points. Hopefully I'll find out in July that we can get the room earlier and none of this will matter, but if not, this is very helpful!
  • Either option is okay, but as a guest, I would prefer the ceremony and reception be at the same venue so I don't have to look for parking at two different locations. But I think you can have a dinner reception following your ceremony if it ends by about 7:30pm. If the ceremony ends later than that, then I agree that it would make sense to have a desserts-and-appetizers type reception.
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