this is the code for the render ad
Community› Wedding Discussion Boards› Wedding Reception Forum
Wedding Reception Forum
New Discussion

Ideas for Guests Between Ceremony and Reception

brunettebride26brunettebride26 member
First Comment First Anniversary
in Wedding Reception Forum

Hi!

My fiance and I are getting married in June at a local country club, so we are having the ceremony and reception in one place. Currently, our plan with the venue is to have the ceremony at 5pm and then reception at 6pm (they are allocating us one hour for the ceremony and then 5 for the cocktail/reception). However, my fiance and I want to have a short ceremony, no more than 10 minutes. Since the cocktail hour won't start until 6pm, I'm worried about how to keep my guests entertained for the rest of the hour. My first thought is to try and see if I can extend drinks to start at 5:30pm, and another thought might be a photobooth (we haven't decided if we want one or not). Are there other ideas to try and keep our guests entertained for most of an hour until they can get food or drinks?

Report Reply to Post

Re: Ideas for Guests Between Ceremony and Reception

  • JennyColadaJennyColada member
    2500 Comments 500 Love Its Third Anniversary First Answer
    As the venue likely won't be doing anything with the space in between the events, just partner with them to have your cocktail hour begin as soon as the ceremony is over. Your reception will just end ~40 minutes earlier, which is fine really.
    Report Reply
  • Maggie0829Maggie0829 member
    Eighth Anniversary 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 25 Answers
    brunettebride26 said:

    Hi!

    My fiance and I are getting married in June at a local country club, so we are having the ceremony and reception in one place. Currently, our plan with the venue is to have the ceremony at 5pm and then reception at 6pm (they are allocating us one hour for the ceremony and then 5 for the cocktail/reception). However, my fiance and I want to have a short ceremony, no more than 10 minutes. Since the cocktail hour won't start until 6pm, I'm worried about how to keep my guests entertained for the rest of the hour. My first thought is to try and see if I can extend drinks to start at 5:30pm, and another thought might be a photobooth (we haven't decided if we want one or not). Are there other ideas to try and keep our guests entertained for most of an hour until they can get food or drinks?

    Your venue is allotting one hour for the ceremony but I am sure if you said "oh our ceremony will only be 10 minutes so cocktail hour will need to start at 5:10" then I am sure they can accommodate that.  They may have allotted you the one hour thinking that is how long you would need.

    Report Reply
  • jenijoykjenijoyk member
    Tenth Anniversary 500 Love Its 500 Comments First Answer

    Your cocktail hour should start right after the ceremony is over. So you should either move your ceremony to start at 5:30 or 5:45 with the cocktail hour starting immediately after. Or you leave the ceremony start time at 5:00, and move up your cocktail hour to start right when you're done.

    Even if you have a photobooth, all your guests will just be standing around from 5:15-6:00 doing nothing, eating nothing, and drinking nothing. The photobooth won't really solve that problem...

    Also, if you get the ceremony space from 5-6.... does this include the time your guests arrive? Because they will start showing up half an hour early. If the venue is promising chairs set up and DJ set up at 5... then they probably are assuming your start time is 5:30.

    Our venue promised the chairs would be set up by 4:30 (but they were done much earlier), and we hired the DJ to start playing music at 4:15. Guests started arriving around then even though our ceremony didn't start until a few minutes after 5.

    Report Reply
  • peachy13peachy13 member
    Fifth Anniversary 1000 Comments 500 Love Its First Answer
    You should look into seeing if your ceremony can take place at 5:30, and then cocktail hour at 6pm, etc. Even if your ceremony is 10 minutes long, there is a lot of time before/after that overall will probably take 30 minutes, so 5:30-6 for your ceremony would be perfect.

    If the venue can't do a ceremony at 5, then cocktail hour needs to start at 5:30. You really can't have your guests roaming around without food or drink for 1/2 hour. As others said, just let the venue know that it won't be a long ceremony.
    Daisypath Anniversary tickers


    Report Reply
  • brunettebride26brunettebride26 member
    First Comment First Anniversary

    Right now, the venue has it that our ceremony would start at 5pm, so everything would be set-up by then. As for ceremony music, I'm still in the process of looking for someone, but I'd probably want them to start playing maybe 15 minutes before the actual ceremony while guests come-in.

    So I guess I should talk to the venue about trying to adjust my hours for the ceremony or cocktail.

    Thanks :-)

    Report Reply
  • theartistformerlyknownastheartistformerlyknownas member
    10000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers First Anniversary
    Sounds like PPs have you covered but I just wanted to say thank you for not asking what type of trolley you should get to drive your guests around for 4-5 hours. :)
    image
    image
    Report Reply
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards