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Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions
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Long Ceremony
My fiancé and I were planning out the prayers and vows we want included in our ceremony, along with the processional, and few traditions we'd like to throw in. And the length of the ceremony runs to a little over an hour. My mother says this is too long and that no one will want to sit through it so they will try to skip it and come only to the reception. I have no intention of cutting the time, but I'd like to know, will guests actually skip my ceremony just because of how long it is? What should I do to prevent this?
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Re: Long Ceremony
Is this a full mass?
Is this really considered a long ceremony?
I don't know anyone who would actually enjoy sitting through an hour-long wedding ceremony. It's only tolerated at Catholic/Orthodox/Hindu/etc.* weddings because the actual religious service takes that long. Bottom line, I've never ever heard anyone say, "Gosh, I wish that ceremony had been longer!"
*Not having been to any weddings of a different culture or faith, I'm not really sure which all involve lengthy ceremonies, so forgive me please if I have wrongly called out or if I have failed to mention one.
"Don't do that."
Your are being very selfish by putting your guests through extra prayers and extra vows and traditions that are only meaningful to you and your fiance. Think of your guests and cut out the unnecessary ceremony. You can do your extra vows and prayers when you are alone on your honeymoon.
If that's an hour or more, stop. Save anything beyond that for when you and your FI are in private. If it's less but adding anything brings it to more than an hour, don't add anything.
If you are having a religious ceremony then there is likely not much you can do. If this is a ceremony of your own creation (you are choosing all the readings and traditions) then I would consider shortening it.
I'm with you @ILoveBeachMusic. I like something in the middle.
Our ceremony was between 20-30 mins including processional and recessional. We had a reading and our officiant gave what he calls a "motivational moment" where we also included another reading.
As for your invitation timing, all you include on the invitation is the date, time, location of your ceremony, and at the bottom of the invitation you would state "Reception to follow". You can include a separate insert for the reception that lists the address, but beyond that you really do not need any more detail in your invitation- it should be just the facts.
I have seen a couple programs that go into a bit more detail, such as:
Ceremony 3pm
Cocktail hour 4pm
Dinner 5pm
First Dance 7pm
Late Night Buffet 10pm
Last Dance 12am
But this is not necessary. However, if you do want to provide this detail, the program would be a better place to do it.
After all, as the Bard wrote, "brevity is the soul of wit / And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes." No need to go on and on when as much or more meaning can be found in a shorter (and therefore more pleasant to witness) ceremony. Think of eating a scoop of ice cream. It is delightful to the last bite and leaves you wanting more. Now imagine being forced to eat an entire gallon of that ice cream, spoonful after spoonful after spoonful with barely an end in sight. Much less enjoyable, right? Less is more.
However, regardless of how long or short your ceremony is nobody is going to know ahead of time. You need to be ready to host your guests immediately after the ceremony concludes, so the start time of the next stage is not something that needs to be--or even really could be--shared in advance. If your wedding concludes at 5:37 and it takes 10 minutes to get to the reception location, the reception starts at 5:47. No one needs to be told that.
These are just examples but if you did things like add a unity candle or a sand ceremony or sung opera because they're things that you liked but not really required, I'd try to cut it.
That's different than coming to me and saying, "You know that Catholic Mass is really long. Do you REALLY need to be married in the church??"
Ditto everyone else. If it's a full Catholic mass or other religious ceremony that MAKES the wedding last that long, ok. But if it's because you are personally making it that long with readings and super long vows and this ritual and that poem, then yea. Cut it down. Shoot for 30 minutes, tops.
Ideas on how to cut stuff back:
- Limit or eliminate unity stuff (candle, sand, handfasting, etc.). Your wedding is a unity ceremony in and of itself.
- Limit family members in the processional to just parents and grandparents (or just have them seated and don't have them process at all).
- Have the WP standing up at the front instead of taking time for them to process.
- Limit your readings. We had 4 readings originally. We ended up printing two of them in our programs and only having two that were read aloud.
- Condense your vows. We ended up doing a letter exchange where we wrote each other a letter on why we're marrying and put it in a box to open on our 5th anniversary. Some people do this and open it the morning of the wedding. Either way, THAT'S the conduit for your lengthy sonnets and you can keep your vows at the wedding to a minute or two.
Agree with the others here on the length...Personally my attention starts to drift at 30 mins and by 45 I am all but dying to be out of there...I have been to Catholic Ceremonies that last the full hour, and honestly a lot of people were getting restless towards the second half.
If you ceremony is an hour due to religion there is not much you can do try to at least shorten the time and number of people processing/recessing the area. If it is long due to personal choices, see what you can do in private or write out in your programs instead of speaking aloud.
Also, I am curious why do you think you need a timeline of events? If the event is hosted properly it should just progress naturally from ceremony to cocktails/reception to the end of the event. Do you have a large gap to fill???
Thanks @southernbelle0915! You helped me be more considerate of our guests. (I haven't timed our ceremony yet, but we have a script.)
I will say that we put a general timeline on our wedding website, not the invite itself:
Ceremony 6pm
Cocktail hour 6:30pm
Dinner 7:30pm
I did this for two reasons- one, to subtly indicate that we're starting on time, yo, and two, because for many people 7:30 is a late dinner.
The only reasons someone would skip a ceremony (hopefully) include a) large gap, which is rude; b) long distance between ceremony site and reception site and c) couldn't get out of work early enough or other personal emergency that has nothing to do with you.
Usually invites say something like "ceremony at 3pm at x location; reception to follow at y location." (See the invite board for specifics.)
Your mom is right, it's way too long and you're going to lose a lot of people's attention.
If I didn't know about it before hand, I wouldn't complain to your face, but you can bet I'd be very fidgety after about 20 minutes and during the reception I, along with a good portion of your guests, will be talking behind your back about how we're glad it's FINALLY over and we could get up and move around.
Is there really nothing that can be cut and done privately between you and your FI before or afterwards or incorporate in different ways (like printing the reading onto a back of the program instead of actually having the reading in person)? You're getting married, not putting on a play for an audience.
Personally, I'd say anything beyond 30 minutes is excessive (and even that's pushing it). I suggest you reconsider what you're including in your ceremony and figure out what you really want in there and what would mean a lot to you to say in front of your family and friends.