Tomorrow I am meeting with my dream wedding venue, the Miami Beach Resort & Spa, and hoping to leave with a contract signed. I visited the venue about two weeks ago when the wedding coordinator was out of town, and someone else who works there told me I could have the date that I wanted, 11-5-11, even though there was a class reunion scheduled because they were flexible. Well just yesterday the wedding coordinator was finally able to get back to me and told me that the class reunion cannot move to a different ballroom because the clients happen to be movie stars. I was a little disappointed, but at least they had another date available that month on the 19th, the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I am mostly okay with this, I just have to decide if we will skip Thanksgiving or put off the honeymoon for a week (probably the latter).
My concern is about timing of the ceremony and reception. Both of the ballrooms that I want to use have huge windows around the entire room. My vision was that we would have the ceremony during daylight, then the cocktail hour during sunset (also in a window intensive room facing the west), and then the reception during nighttime. This really fits in with the themes of the rooms as well, as they are very "day and night", which I love.
Ceremony (Dome Ballroom)
Reception (Starlight Ballroom)
Originally I had picked 5:30 as a ceremony start time because sunset would be at 6:30. Ceremony from 5:30-6, cocktail until 7, and reception until 11. Moving the date back two weeks moves us out of Daylight Savings Time, so the sunset would be at 5:30.
Should I move forward everything by an hour to match with the sunset? I'm a little worried that 10pm is a little early of an ending time, and my guests are partiers. I may be able to pay for an extra hour, but the budget is already maxed out at the moment. What do you guys think?