wedding ceremony start times too early & too late!

txbridetobe24

the church I'm planning to book has 2 windows for ceremony times. my FH doesn't want the ceremony to run too late but I think the earlier window is just too early for a wedding. I'm kind of freaking out bc I don't know how we will have time to get ready & take wedding party pics before the ceremony, and I'm afraid we will spend too much time w/ family pictures after the ceremony. the reception venues I'm looking at are only about 10-15mins away from the church. does anyone have any suggestions or am I just over-stressing?
Ceremony Start Times
Option 1: 10am - 2pm
              start times: 11:30am, 12pm & 12:30pm
Option 2: 4pm - 8pm
             start times: 5:30pm, 6pm & 6:30pm

professorscience

I'm not sure why there's a problem.  At every wedding I've attended the wedding party has arrived at the reception later than everyone else because of pictures.  The morning/afternoon timeslot seems fine, you will just be getting up and ready pretty early.  My only worry for the evening time is that dinner will be served kind of late at your reception, but that's never really been an issue, I don't think.

MarieSD

I think you can do any of those time frames. The question is, do you want an evening reception or an afternoon reception?

I initially wanted my wedding at 4 pm so that dinner could be served at 6 pm. But, my wedding planner recommended I instead have the ceremony at 5:30. (The cocktail hour, with finger foods, was 6:30-7:30 and the buffet opened after that).  But then again, I wanted a reception that went til midnight.

We took about 1.5 hours for the bridal party, bride & groom, and family pictures. (We did them all before the ceremony). I took an hour to get my hair and makeup done, and about 15 minutes to get into my dress. So I think you can do the earlier slots too. We did do a few more pictures after the ceremony -- a few wedding guests and a few more with the bride & groom -- and that took about 20 minutes. My photographer's assistant had the list of shots to take, I made sure everyone was assembled, and it went extremely fast.

texaggie07

We are doing an earlier slot (11 AM) and I will probably have to wake up really early to get everything done but it will get done. I initially wanted a late reception but couldn't pass up the chapel we got and that was the only time slot.

MLandCJ

I got married at 5 p.m. and I was up at 6 a.m. because I couldn't sleep. I sat around most of the morning.

It just breaks down to if you are a morning person or not.

Jen6862

If you're having an evening wedding I think the 5:30 sounds perfect. People can start appetizers by 6:30 - 7 p.m. Dinner at 7:30.

-Jen

courtski2004

I think you're overstressing. If you choose a later time slot, you'll have all day to get ready and do whatever pictures that you'd like. If you have an experienced wedding photographer, they will know what family post-ceremony pics you want (this is me assuming that you would advise them accordingly) and make that flow pretty quickly. Make it known to them what your timeline looks like. I did this, and my itinerary had it so that after our 5:00 ceremony (which ended at 5:30 ish) we herded the guests out, had all of the family come back into the sanctuary, did all the pics, and we arrived at our cocktail hour by 6:30. We had 15 minutes of travel time between the two venues and we were 15 minutes ahead of schedule. My photog knew we were itchin to party, so he hustled us on while still getting all the shots we wanted.

fallbride1109

I would pick the second window and any of those start times sound fine (as long as you plan to provide a full meal).  Our ceremony was at 7, dinner was at 8:30 and the reception was over at 11:30.  People understand that a wedding in the evening means dinner will be a little late.

If you wanted to have a brunch reception, you could do the earlier window.  I am always a little envious of brunch receptions when I see them.  Then you can either spend the evening at an after party with your friends or get the honeymoon started early.