My fiancée and his family are extremely sentimental people, as well as devout Catholics. It means a lot to him that we get married in the same church and venue in that his parents were married in. The church and venue are both spectacular, however we are not allowed to have a ceremony later than 2, and the venue won't start a cocktail hour earlier than 5.
Everyone on his side of the family is used to gaps and doesn't think this is a big deal at all, however I'm concerned that many of my close friends and relatives (almost all non-Catholics) will resent us or not show up to the ceremony because of this timeline. To make things even more complicated, this is a rather large wedding (~350 people) and his parents are footing the vast majority of the bill so I don't feel like I can push back on them without looking like a brat... I have looked at other churches in the area but they either don't have a big enough capacity, or also have a time restriction forcing a gap.
I'm doing the whole "Here's local activities in Milwaukee!" on the wedding website, but it feels like I might as well say "Prepare to fend for yourselves for two hours in dress clothes!". I've brought up the idea of somehow hosting everyone during the gap (Open a Bar tab? Someone's house?), but every option just seems not practical for a group our size. FH/FMIL is firmly convinced that people want to "freshen up / put up their feet" before the reception. Anyone have ideas of how to tackle this or do I just need to suck it up?