How long before the ceremony

sol_star

How long before the ceremony should we ask guest to arrive?Is an hour enough time or too long?The ceremony is outside on a family farm.  We are keeping it quite small. 

Golfer'sLady

They can arrive whenever they would like. Just put the ceremony start time on the invitation and they'll figure it out.

dukeylouise

There is no need to ask them to arrive at any time.  You only need to give them the ceremony time and they can be responsible for showing up on time.

salt78

I would think that people could figure out what time to arrive on their own based on the ceremony time on the invitation.

vallyhoo

Put the time of the ceremony on the invitation, the guests will know to arrive before the start of the ceremony.

J&K10910

Huh?  Why wouldn't you just tell them what time the ceremony starts and let them make the decision by themselves?  Is there a reason you'd ask them to arrive an hour before the ceremony??  As long as they're in their seats when you want to start, they're good.

ffmaid

You should ask guests to arrive at exactly the time you hope to start. Gu4esta arrive 10-15 minutes early for weddings some as much as 30 min early. If you lie to your guests and ask them to show up and hour early they wioll spend 90 minutes waiting on you 60 of those wondering which one of you is calling off the wedding  

salt78

Oh and BTW I would never show up an hour before a wedding. That is WAY too much time. Normally I would arrive about 15 minutes prior to the ceremony starting.

tlv204

I'd be very unhappy if I had to wait an hour for a ceremony to start. Ditto ffmaid about everyone wondering why the wedding is called off

sol_star

That makes things easier. :)I was looking at time lines and was like wait... am I supposed to have an arrival time instead of a ceremony time?I am glad I only have to do this once.

lyndausvi

I would just tell them correct time.    I would be pissed if I had to wait an hour.  Actually I always show up 15 minutes a head of time, so I would be waiting 1 hr and 15 minutes.

tlv204

The arrival time on timelines is usually for when you are supposed to arrive at the ceremony site, not the guests.

ac_in_dc

If you're worried that it's going to take your guests a long time to get to the site, you could always put estimated travel times on your directions card, or if there's a long walk involved from the parking spot or whatever.

banana468

Give a timeline for the WP. Just put the start time on the invitation.