Help!!

ninu

Hi ladies,

I have a question for you all..

We have our ceremony at 2pm and are planning on having our dinner at 6:30 pm at the same location. The location is remote (ie- no restaurants nearby), so my question is, should we serve Hor D'ouvres after the ceremony, or before the dinner? 

Either way, we likely won't be there are we'll be getting photos after the ceremony, or getting ready while they're having Hor d'ouvres before dinner..any ideas? 

Thank you soo much!

xx

SD3194

Is there any way you can eliminate that gap?

I would be a little irritated at a wedding if I was expected to twiddle my thumbs and eat hors d'oeuvres for 4 hours. If you insist on having a having a gap anyway (which I strongly advise against) then you definitely need to offer something to eat and drink. Are their hotels nearby? If so, they will most likely go back there instead of hanging around.

solemnlyswear

I agree I would try to close the gap but if you can't then I would definitely have food and drink while they are waiting. But most likely I think that people will leave and/or be irritated. I would be.

jessicabessica

I would not be happy to be left in a remote location for four hours while you took pictures.  If you end up with that large of a gap, make sure you have lots of food, drinks, places to sit, and maybe even activities.  Can you make the cocktail hour start at 4, and then move towards dinner at 5:15?  That would cut the gap in half, although still not great (and I think you should still provide the above with any kind of gap where people can't easily leave).  

031107

We have been invited to several weddings that have had a long gap in between the ceremony and reception.  For every one of those weddings we attended the reception but not the ceremony.  There was no way we were going to get dressed up, go to the ceremony and then wait, and wait, and wait (in dress and heals/suit and tie) for hours for the reception.  I think it is rude.

Can you shorten the time gap?  I didn't want my husband to see me before the wedding but I didn't want the guests to have to wait for our pictures to be taken either.  So we had all of our pictures taken before hand except those that my husband and I would be in together.  So, all his family, my family, getting ready, pictures of his bridal party, my bridal party, solo pictures of him, solo pictures of me....all done before the ceremony.  Then after were pictures of us together, with bridal party, family...  This cut the time down a lot.

We had the ceremony and reception at the same place also.  We told the venue to start serving right away.  I don't think it is fair to make your guests wait more than 1 hour before the reception starts.  And during that hour there better be appitizers and drinks.

lsk40

sorry but I would feel like you are taking my whole day a 4hr gap you almost need to have two meals 

ninu

Thanks everyone for your input!!  The venue for the ceremony and reception is at the hotel, so I figured people wouldn't mind going back to thier room etc but yes you're all right, that is a LONG time to make people wait around while dressed nicely etc. I'm going to re-work the plan! 

Thanks again  

Ninu