Timeline Questions
Hi!!!
Thanks for any help with this. I am trying to nail down a good timeline for the day of my wedding. I know that the ceremony will start at 3:30 as that is set by our venue. The ceremony and reception are in the same place (ceremony outside on balconey, reception/dinner inside)
3:00 Seating begins
3:30 to 4:00 Ceremony
4:00 to 5:00ish Wedding party/bride and groom pictures...during this time the guests can enjoy cocktail hour with appetizers
5:00 to 5:15-ish Grand Entrance
5:15 to 6:00 Continued cocktail hour...guests asked to sit at 5:45.
6:00 to 7:30ish Plated dinner with toasts - Is that normal...toasts during dinner?
7:30ish First Dance/Mother and Son Dance/Father and Daugher Dance...immediately followed by the dance floor being "opened" aka dance music starts!
8:00 or 8:30 Cake Cutting
More dancing and drinking until the party fizzles out. We have the venue until midnight.
The big question I have is - Is 6:00pm too late for dinner if the ceremony starts at 3:30? We will be sure to have heavy/filling apps starting at 4 with the cocktail hour. So, I don't think it's too late, but I want some other opinions.
Also, is 1.5 hours too long for dinner? I kind of need to do the "dances" at 7:30ish because sunset is at 7:08pm that day and I'd love to do sunset pictures, which I am planning as 7:00 to 7:30. Or would it be better to do the dances at like 6:45 and then run outside after that? Our dinner is two courses; salad and entree.
Thanks!!!!!
Re: Timeline Questions
Are your ceremony and reception taking place in the same location? Any travel time would affect your timeline as well.
Also about those sunset pictures. Our photographer suggested the same thing, and we kind of said alright let's wait and see how we're feeling around that time and we'll make the decision on the fly. We ended up not wanting to leave the reception and didn't do them. The problem is, you never know what it's going to look like on that day, what the sunset will be like from your venue (unless it's somewhere you've been at that time of day before), and honestly it will take more time than you think. A half hour isn't really long enough to get more than a couple posed snaps, once you accommodate time to walk out and back in, get set up, etc. It will also look really odd and almost rude if you leave in the middle of dinner. Typically at the dinner, the bride and groom are seated in a prominent location, so every guest would see you duck out and they'd see how long you were gone for.
Serve dinner immediately after the grand entrance and have the toasts then, and start the dancing. I'd do the cake cutting at about 7:00. Then you can go outside for sunset photos if the weather is suitable.
I'd also move up cake cutting; maybe entrance, straight to cake cutting, dinner/toasts, then spotlight dances & open the dance floor.
And no, 6pm is not too late to serve dinner if your wedding is starting at 3:30. That is only 2.5 hours and I am sure most guests will have eaten lunch prior to coming to your wedding.
Do the grand entrance, have the guests sit, do the cake cutting then so it can be plated for dessert. Start dinner at 5:30 instead. Yes, toasts can happen between courses.
Have your DJ (or band?) be ready to do spotlight dances as dessert is being served, and then open the dance floor.
As an aside, if your ceremony begins at 3:30 the invites should say 3:30; it's great if you have some people around beginning at 3pm when people may start arriving early.
Here's an updated timeline for you. You could add an extra half hour to the pics/cocktail hour if you want--but keep in mind that guests will expect the reception to start after any type of grand entrance--if you want to join the cocktail hour, do that without a grand entrance.
3:00 Ceremony space is ready to receive guests
3:30 to 4:00 Ceremony
4:00 to 5:00ish Wedding party/bride and groom pictures...during this time the guests can enjoy cocktail hour with appetizers
5:00 to 5:05-ish Grand Entrance (No one wants to stand and watch/listen to 15 minutes of "grand entrance". Try to keep this to 5 minutes or less if you need to do it at all--that's 1 or 2 full songs. That's a long time still. (Also, typically I see the entrance happen AFTER guests are asked to sit--I assume you have something about the space that has you wanting to do it before?)
5:05 guests asked to sit
5:15 to 6:15ish Plated dinner with toasts. You could have a 1-2 minute welcome (often by a parent) at 5:15; then the salad course lasting ~20 minutes. Then 1-2 toasts, each lasting 2-3 minutes max between courses, then the entree course lasting ~30 minutes.
6:15: cake cutting (this really only takes a couple minutes).
6:17: First Dance/Mother and Son Dance/Father and Daughter Dance...immediately followed by the dance floor being "opened" aka dance music starts!
7:30: cake is served (either on a side table or to people's seats); it doesn't need to interrupt the dancing.
Keep in mind that a typical wedding of this type is 5-6 hours from start to finish. Starting at 3:30 people will be ready to leave by 9:30 or 10:30 or so; you should expect that. Dancing will have been going on from roughly 6:30-9:30pm for these people...that's 3 hours of dancing (and drinking, socializing, and eating cake).