My family is not Catholic but my FI is. We're having a Catholic wedding without a full mass. I am not used to Catholic ceremonies and am unsure with what to do with the gap of time between ceremony and reception.
The church will marry us at 1:00 PM. Our reception location is not set to begin until 5:30 PM - or 4:30 if they allow us to move it earlier. It is 30 minutes away (40 w/traffic) so this will kill some time.
There will probably be a 2 hour gap. FI's family is fine with this (they are used to it being Catholic and local to area) but my family isn't sure what to do since they are all traveling from out of town. We will either invite guests to hotel in between (although this requires a lot of driving), suggest a bar/restaurant for guests to go to... OR look for another church w/later start time.
Anyone else have this issue?