Wedding Etiquette Forum

Reception is 1.5 hr drive from the ceremony & schedule

My husband and I will be having our ceremony at the church in the city and thinking of having reception outside the city. 
We're looking for venues by the ocean, but the drive is like 1.5hr away from the church, and also the ceremony starts at 2pm.

Ideally the venues (we're still looking) will be resort or inn types, so staying overnight should be fine.

I'm not from the States and none of my friends here have had any weddings yet, but I'm curious if anyone has had this situation before or been to one before. 

What would the schedule be like for the day? 


Re: Reception is 1.5 hr drive from the ceremony & schedule

  • That is entirely too far to drive for a reception. You will either need to find a venue at the beach for the ceremony so that the ceremony and reception are closer or have the reception in the city. A drive from place to another should be ideally no more than 30 minutes. Personally if I were invited to a wedding where I had to drive an hour and half to the reception I would decline the invitation. For instance if I were coming to your wedding, I would have to check into the hotel at the beach, drive 1.5 hours into the city for a ceremony then turn around and drive back to the beach. That is three hours of driving in a day. Even if most of your guests live in the city and would only be driving one way, they would still have to check in once they arrive at the resort for the reception. No one wants to be doing that when they should be enjoying cocktails and apps. Please don't do this to your guests.
  • Your venues are way too far apart.

    Either have your ceremony at a venue near the beach or your reception at a venue near the church. But there cannot be a 1.5 hour travel distance between your venues. The maximum travel time between venues should be 30 minutes. If people have to go for a drive of any longer after the ceremony, they might turn around and go home or back to their hotels instead.
  • You need to pick one or the other. Driving an hour and a half in the middle of an event is just too far. 

    If you're dead set on the beach, find a church closer out there. If you're dead set on your church, find a reception venue in the city. 
  • Ditto the others.   Also, I'm assuming all of this is in an ideal situation and post-pandemic.

    We did the over one hour ride last year between the ceremony and reception for a family wedding and IMO the only reason it "worked" is because the ceremony was sort of on the way to the reception which was a family home.  So we sort of stopped halfway for a ceremony and then the reception was also SUUUUPER low key. 

    This is one of those times that you'll have to figure out the priority and go.   For DH and me the church was more important so we planned around that availability.   I would have loved a shoreline reception but it wasn't in the cards so we bought a boat the day after our 10 year anniversary. 
  • My SIL had a wedding like this. It was rough. We had young children at the time, and they were invited, but the drives were excruciating. And even if you aren't having children at your wedding, you may have guests who are parents. How will this work for them? And what about any older guests? If you're picking the church because it's your church, find a reception venue nearby. But if you're picking the church because it's pretty and has no meaning other than that for you, find a place to get married that is also near your reception venue.
  • Please don't do this to your guests. That is an extremely long drive to ask people to do between a ceremony and reception. You need to choose one location. 
  • Oh hell no. Also depending on the area, “1.5 hrs away” in ideal traffic conditions can mean 2-3 hrs in reality. 


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  • levioosa said:
    Oh hell no. Also depending on the area, “1.5 hrs away” in ideal traffic conditions can mean 2-3 hrs in reality. 
    Or longer if you have a hurricane!  
  • 1.5 hours is way too long of a distance between your ceremony and reception venues. Any wedding I've never been to where ceremony and reception were in different places, I don't think there was more than 20 minutes between venues. 

    If you are set on having your ceremony at that church, you need to find a reception venue closer by. If you're set on a wedding by the ocean, you should have everything at one venue or you should find a church closer to the ocean if a church ceremony is important to you. What you're thinking of doing will be exhausting and unfair for your guests.
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  • Your wedding is a wedding I would decline unless it was a sibling of mine, in which case I would be having a conversation with him asking, "What are you thinking?"
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