Our reception is booked from 4-9pm, with cocktail hour from 4-5pm. We are doing a casual invitation (word of mouth at the reception) that we are moving the party back to the hotel where we will block off rooms for guests to reserve. That said, we need to figure out a ceremony time.
Travel time to the reception location is approximately 45 minutes (average - I can get there in 30 if you aren't stuck in traffic, but an older family member may take 50 minutes because they drive slowly on big highways). It's an easy drive, you literally stay straight on a highway and make one right turn on a different road.
The ceremony needs to end by 3pm to give them time to pack up and travel in order to start the reception on time. We're having a baptist wedding, which should take about 30-40 minutes. This puts us at 2:30pm if we want to have a schedule with no room for error (delay in getting there, etc.).
Should we push the ceremony up until 2pm to allow for human error or go with 2:30 and hope everyone is ready to go at 2:30? I'm leaning towards 2:00pm.