VENT!!!

ssaeed

So, I am a completely laid back bride - but I had my first Bridezilla moment (and hopefully last). Our ceremony and reception are booked at Palais Royale for July 8, 2011. For the last 5 years, the Indy has been held the weekend after - well, lo and behold it is being held from July 8-10 next year!!! So, this of course puts a major wrench in plans  - we were hoping to have our ceremony outside, and I do not want the sounds of Formula 1 racing cars during our ceremony!!!

So, not only is there the Jameson bridge construction, there is also the closure of Lakeshore for the Indy - which means we need an alternate route for our guests (guests coming from the west will be ok) - but the majority are coming from the east....sigh. I have realized that we will need to push back our ceremony to 6pm - but I am worried that a cocktail hour and dinner will be too late - should I do away with the cocktail hour completely and run right into the reception? What do you guys think?

Littlin

I had my cocktail hour at 6 and dinner started at 7 - it seemed fine for my guests!  We finished up around 9:30 and people stayed the entire night and danced until 1:30am!  I think you're okay with timing!

ring_pop

Aw, that sucks about the Indy putting a wrench in your ceremony plans! Maybe the Jameson construction will be done by then though? I thought they were scheduled to finish in the spring.

Anyway... how long will your ceremony be? And are they all at Palais Royale? If so, maybe you can just have a cocktail half-hour. So the ceremony would be at 6, immediately followed by cocktails, and then dinner could still start at 7. If everyone will be there anyway, it's not really necessary for the cocktail "hour" to really last an hour.

Otherwise, doing away with it all together wouldn't be bad either! We didn't really have one. We just asked the venue to put out some bowls of snacks so that if anyone was really starving before dinner, they could munch on the snacks.

mattycam

I think what the previous posts had mentioned is a good idea as long as everything starts on time. I know that any delay on major highways puts a damper on things let alone the Indy! However if your ceremony starts at 6pm this will give people enough time to plan accordingly for traffic and any unforseeable cirmcumstance on the Gardiner/back roads!