Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions

Friday night ceremony/reception experience?

FI and I are looking at the wek between Christmas and New Year's Eve to have our wedding.  Time frames are tight as FI is in law school, and we both agreed we wanted to have the wedding after Christmas.  The wedding will be relatively small comprised of only close family and friends.  Since I am against Sunday weddings (personal superstition - everyone I know who has been married on a Sunday has gotten divorced), does anyone have any experience with Friday weddings?  Do people generally feel like they are a good idea or bad idea?

Thanks for your insight!

Re: Friday night ceremony/reception experience?

  • I have no issue with Friday weddings personally, but like PP said, make sure you start them later (earliest I'd do ceremony is 600 or 630) to accommodate people getting home from work, changing and traveling to your wedding. You may, depending on your guests, get more "no's" especially if people are from OOT and this would require a day off work. But you may not, especially if it's just family and close friends. No matter what day your wedding is on, there's the chance it won't work for someone. I don't know the specific date of your wedding, but the only other thing I would say is that if it's between XMas and NYE, you may have people decline because of holiday travel plans.


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  • The Friday night wedding I have been to was a courthouse wedding and reception so not religious at all so it was just like a party and it worked fine.  With church service I have no idea how well it will flow.  Good luck!
  • we went to a small friday wedding in march! it was about 40 people, tops. so nice and so much fun!! yes we ended up taking 2 days off work, (went up on thursday, it was only about an hour drive but fi was in the wedding so we wanted to be there to help!) it was really nice because we had the weekend still when we got home on saturday! usually when you have a busy weekend with wedding stuff, monday morning rolls around wayyyy to soon but we got home around 2pm on saturday and still had a weekend to enjoy!! i would go for, if the people you are inviting are family and close friends, then your wedding is worth a vacation day for them!!!  :)
  • I've been to a Friday wedding and it was perfectly nice; though with a somewhat lower turnout than you might expect otherwise for those who couldn't get off work, etc.  My only warning to you is that the lower turnout of a Friday combined with the lower turnout of a holiday-season wedding might make for a REALLY low turnout, depending on how many of your guests are in-town versus travelling, etc.
  • Helsy85Helsy85 member
    First Comment
    My wedding will be on a friday night. Our ceremony starts at 5.30 followed straight after by the reception. Having it on a friday is saving us $1000+!! If it is a small wedding of close family and friends im sure you will not have a low turn out. As long as you give people time to organize themselves by sending out the invitations earlier than usual, especially to accomodate the holidays! I have only ever heard of positive things about friday weddings, especially that you have the whole weekend to recover!
  • Anyway you could push it back to the Firday after Thanksgiving?  Daughter's wedding was that day and it felt like a Saturday for most attendees.  Saved $$$ too!
  • We had a Friday night wedding and loved having the rest of our weekend after.  We invited 105 people and had a turn out of 99.  I think some people missed our ceremony.  The church would not let anything start passed 5:30, so our ceremony was at 5.  But mostly everyone was there.  We did send out STDs, so that helped with our high turn out and almost everyone attending was local.  If you are having a wedding during the holiday season, regardless of the day, I would send out STDs.  This way people can plan around your wedding, if needed.
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