What time?

MissPetty1121

What is a good time to start a Friday night wedding? We have to be out of the venu by 11 pm

aerinpegadrak

Depends on where you live and what kind of reception you want to have.  If you want to have a cocktail or dessert reception, you could start as late as 9pm.  If you're serving dinner and want dancing, you'll want to start around 6 or 7.If your guests are mostly locals who work regular day jobs, and you live somewhere that traffic is bad, take that into consideration.  I live in LA, so if I were invited to a 7pm wedding, I'd probably still have to leave early from work to get home, get changed, and get there on time.

Catwoman708

If you have to be OUT (as in cleanened up and gone) then you need to start as soon as possible. I'd allow anywhere between 4 and 8 hours, it depends on a lot of other factors. Such as if you are having ceremony and reception in the same venue or not, if you are having a short or longer ceremony, the size of your guest list, if you wil be doing WP pictures in advance or in between ceremony and reception, and whether you will be doing your own set up and clean up, or if you will have help. DIY takes waaaay longer. For a short, simple ceremony in the same location, if you've already done WP photos in advance, have simple finger foods or buffet, no alcohol or dancing, small guest list, an hour for clean up, then I'd allow 4 hours, and suggest you start the ceremony at 6:30 or 7:00. You should probably serve the food as soon as possible. Serve your cake by 9pm, so you can wrap it up with the guests by 10, and still have an hour for clean up. For a longer ceremony in the same location, an hour in between for WP photos and cocktail hour for the guests, a sit down dinner, dancing, alcohol, plus clean up time, I'd allow at least 6 hours for a small wedding, 7or 8 for a larger wedding. So you might start the ceremony as early as 3 or 4 pm. Friday weddings present a problem of people having to leave work early, and fight rush hour traffic. So if it's possible to start early and hope guests can get off early, I would find that preferable to starting late, having rushed or late, hungry guests, then have to rush through the reception to be out by 11.

aerinpegadrak

Oh, I forgot about clean-up time.  Yeah, pretend the times I recommended in my previous post are an hour earlier.

MissPetty1121

Ok I guesse I could of told you all alittle more about my wedding. If EVERY single body was to show up that I counted for it would be 179. There are 65 invites going out. But i know no everyone will show up with that being said we are having a DJ and there will be drinking so we would like to have at least three hours for all that. The whole thing will be in the same venue Cer and Rec. Its going to be a short ceremony. We are going to have dinner type foods and every one will sit and eat. It will be buffet.

Catwoman708

I went to a wedding that started at 6:15, short ceremony, same venue for both ceremony and reception, no pictures taken in advance, cocktails and catered buffet dinner (and bar service), DJ and dancing. Everything else was DIY, including setting up chairs, tables, linens, decorations, sound system, and some lighting. They were not allowed to set up until 5 pm, and had to be cleaned up and out by 11 pm. She had a small army of friends and relatives helping set up, and later clean up, and we did not get it set up in time. The ceremony started about 20 minutes late. Others helped move tables and chairs or had cocktails, while the WP did photos for about 20-30 minutes, so the reception started about 7:15. Everything seemed hectic and rushed, and they cut the cake about 9 pm, and wrapped up the reception about 10 pm with a last dance and "last call" for the bar. Then had to start gathering linens, loading up tables and chairs, gathering belongings, etc... and made it out just before 11, but there were about 20 friends and relative actively helping. It was lovely wedding, but a lot of minor snafus, and it was so exhausting. ANd I was only helping with decorations/flowers, not the heavy work.

MissPetty1121

Well luckly we get the key at 8 am Friday so we can already be all set up come time and the way we are setting up is everyone will be sitting at the same tables during the cermony and reception so there won't be any problems there. And I have about 60 people doing all my set up clean up food etc. so I am fourtante there. I just really wanted it to be Sat but we will make it work.

megk8oz

I'm having a Friday night wedding (Also have to be out by 11), the ceremony and reception are at the same place, and we're starting the ceremony at 5:30 ... the ceremony's only going to be like 20 minutes long, we were going to just let it roll into a cocktail "hour" from there, and then so on and so forth into the reception.The room we're getting married in is the same that the reception will be in (Cocktail hour is in another room so they can change it from ceremony rows to having tables and whatnot for the reception), and so basically the venue's coordinator told us once the room is completely set for the reception and we're done with our pics we can get the party started.

megk8oz

Oh, yeah, I forgot to add that I don't have to clean up, so the reception really can go til 11 if everybody wants to stay that late ,they can ... so I'm not much help in the "if you have to clean up" dept.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

I'd start at 6. Most people can just leave work a little early and make it. Or at least make it to the dinner.

Melisha82

Mine starts at 6pm