time frame

carlyanne05

First of all, we have another check...we will be getting married at The First Baptist Church of Pittsburgh!!!  Boy was that a feat to find - most places were already booked (St. Paul's, Heinz Memorial, etc.) or will only marry members, which is not an option since we live in NOVA! 

Now for my question:  There are 3 ceremony times to choose from at First Baptist (11:30, 2:30, 5:30) so we are planning on 2:30.  I was hoping for something in between the second two options so now I'm stressing about the time frame.  If the ceremony begins at 2:30, when should the cocktail hour start?  And do the reception hours include the cocktail hour (ie: 4 hrs for reception + 1 cocktail hour OR 5 hrs for reception + 1 cocktail hour)?  The TCC doesn't give a limited timeframe, but as you know, the other vendors do. 

king26

I would say it depends on how long your ceremony is and how far it is between the ceremony and reception.  I wouldn't leave a huge amount of time between the two.  So if your ceremony is at 2:30, ends at 3:30, I'd say start cocktail hour by 5:00 at the latest, then you can serve dinner at 6.  We ended up having 1 hour for cocktails and 4 hours for the reception after that.  I'll admit, by the end of the night I was exhausted.  I actuallly had the DJ play the last song about 15 minutes before the reception was supposed to end because about half the people had gone by that point (people generally will start leaving after dinner), and we had to get up at 5:30 the next morning to catch our plane. 

pantherRN

I agree with Heather. A lot of it will depend on how long your ceremony is, how far apart, and if you plan on taking pictures between the ceremony and reception. 

As for vendor time frames, our reception hall is booked for 5 hours, so 1 hr for cocktails, 4 for the reception itself.