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Timeline Help- When should ceremony/reception start?

bride044bride044 member
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in Wedding Reception Forum
Hi, I am having a Friday wedding. The ceremony and the reception site are about 15 minutes away, and the reception site and hotel are about 5 minutes from each other, so everything is nice and close. 

I'm not sure when to have our ceremony begin...we're thinking cocktail hour at 5:30, everyone seated around 6:30, dinner at 6:45-7ish. We are not seeing each other before the wedding, so I want to be sure to have time for lots of photos in between, but also don't want to have TOO much time (aka, huge inconvenience for our guests). We are having a shuttle van run from the hotel to the reception site, but since it's so close that will not take long. 

I was thinking having the wedding start at 3 (we're having a catholic ceremony, but not mass). No receiving line. Just  photos and party bus time in between! :) 

Any help or advice is much appreciated! 
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Re: Timeline Help- When should ceremony/reception start?

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    tammym1001tammym1001 member
    First Anniversary First Answer 5 Love Its First Comment
    Here's a timeline for you based on your wedding starting at 3:00:

    3:00 - ceremony begins
    3:45 - ceremony ends and guests leave and head to reception
    4:00 - cocktail hour begins (the pictures would be taken during this time)
    5:00 - bridal party entrance and then the reception begins
    5:15 - serve dinner

    If you want to have dinner around 6:45 then this is the timeline I would use:

    4:30 - ceremony begins
    5:15- ceremony ends and guests leave and head to reception
    5:30 - cocktail hour begins (the pictures would be taken during this time)
    6:30 - bridal party entrance and then the reception begins
    6:45 - serve dinner


    A couple of things for you to think about: 

    1. Starting a ceremony at 3:00 on a Friday is going to mean your guests have to take at least a half day off work so you may end up with a lot of people not coming to the ceremony. 

    2. You can take photos with your bridal party and family before the ceremony and your FI can do the same thing so you don't need as much time for photos after the ceremony. You shouldn't keep your guests waiting for any amount of time while you take pictures. This is what cocktail hours are for, so they have food and drinks while you take pictures. This generally means that the bride and groom don't get to attend their cocktail hour, but if you can get a lot of your individual pictures out of the way before the ceremony you may be able to join your guests for the last part of it.

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    lovegood90lovegood90 member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its Name Dropper

    Everything that @tammym1001 said. The only gap between your ceremony and reception should be for cocktail hour. So if you're not doing a receiving line and the ceremony and reception site are 15 mins away from each other, there should be no more than 1 hour and 15 mins between the ceremony and reception.

    If you don't think you can do all your pictures in 1 hr and 15 mins, you need to find a compromise and do some photos before the ceremony.

    Formerly martha1818

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