Hi everybody, I am having my wedding ceremony in a Catholic church and to be courteous to my guests I would like to minimize the gap. My church is about 20 minutes away from my reception site, the hotel that we blocked off for the guests is about 5 minutes from the reception site.
Here is my issue: Ceremony time is 3pm (non negotiable as per the monsignor) check in time at the hotel is also 3pm. Probably guests can check in early but you never know. Also we are providing a shuttle from the hotel to the reception and back but are providing NO transportation to and from the church. So ideally after the ceremony/mass the guests (majority OOT) will drive themselves to the hotel and hop on the shuttle to the reception.
My thoughts are this:
3-4- ceremony/mass
4:45- shuttle leaves from hotel
5- cocktail hour
6-reception
10-shuttle goes back to hotel
10:15- after party at bar located next to hotel
OR should I make the cocktail hour start at 5:30 to ensure enough time for everyone to get to the hotel, hop the shuttle and get to the reception on time? Of course we do have SOME in town guests who will be going straight to the reception so I don't want them hanging around for too long. (depending on cost I am also considering cocktail hour to be from 5-6:30 and reception 6:30-10:30...not sure how much my venue will charge for this though)
I'm sorry if this was confusing, the logistics of this is starting to stress me out. We are having our invites printed Friday so I need to decide...
Any thoughts or suggestions and BTDT advice would be great!