Ceremony time

afigiel

I'm having difficulty deciding what time I want the actual ceremony to start. I don't want it to start too much sooner than dinner, but I want enough time between for pictures. The problem is the church and the hall are only like 3 minutes away from one another. So, I have a feeling guests will be arriving at the hall 5 minutes after the ceremony is over. I want to have enough time between the wedding and dinner to do pictures, but if I take too long, the guests will all be at the hall bored. So I guess I am wondering what times are good times to start the ceremony, dinner, etc? And what can my guests do while awaiting our arrival to the hall?

naomikb

At the hall you can have a cocktail hour for 1-1.5 hours before dinner.  Provide them with food and drink, and they will mingle while they wait for dinner.

It's not a ton of time for pictures, but it would be inconvenient for your guests to wait longer than that for dinner.  You can do lots of pictures before the ceremony too - if you didn't want to see your H before then you can do all your family pictures, you with the BMs, him with his GMs, and then during cocktail hour just do you guys together and a few quick family shots.

My ideal wedding day timeline would be 4:00 ceremony (1 hour), 5:15 cocktail hour, 6:30 dinner starts.  But everyone has different priorities, events, etc.

clasic1129

Most people have been to enough weddings to realize that the bride and groom almost always show up to the reception at least 30 min after the guests due to pics.  Just make sure they have plenty of snacks and drinks and they'll keep themselves occupied.

whitney37354

Ceremony at 5 with dinner afterward.  If you don't want them to start without you, give them something to drink & munch on.