Ceremony Timing Question

olivehim

For those of you having Saturday evening weddings, what time are you starting your ceremony? I anticipate we'll have a short ceremony and our venue is the same for the reception.  Our planner has us starting the ceremony at 4pm but that seems early to me.  We will do pictures afterwards while our guests are having cocktail hour so that puts dinner starting at 6 or 6:30 I guess.  Am I wrong in thinking this is early?   I feel like most wedding ceremonies I've attended lately have started around 5pm. Tomato, tomato...probably not a big deal between 4 or 5 but I'm obsessing like any good bride should

tpender13

I think that sounds about right. When I DJ'd weddings, the vast majority of them were dinner music from 6-8, and dance from 8-12, so that would put you right on schedule.

drdifabio

I agree - that sounds right to me. I think dinner will take quite a long time espcially with speaches in there so that will give you time for a good dance party after. Maybe try counting backwardss...when do you want to end the reception? Then look at how long you want the dance to go? Put in a couple hours for dinner and an hour for the CH and you have your end time for the ceremony. I hope that makes sense!

debbieupper

I think it depends. If you're doing ALL of your photos after the ceremony, 4:00 might be too LATE if you want to start dinner by 6 and have any time to visit during cocktail hour, but that totally depends on what types of photos you're planning to take. 

Our photog wanted about 2+ hours for photos before the ceremony to get pics of me and FI, and us and the wedding party and immediate family. 

Either way, 4:00 is definitely not too early! I would talk to your photog about his/her plan for photos.

HTH!

olivehim

Thanks ladies!  I confirmed 4:00 ceremony time with Judge Tom Armstrong!