4pm Wedding - how to organise guest list!?

Hi Hun,

I had the same issue with my OH as he said exactly the same as yours as we are getting married at 4pm too and so what we have decided to do is skip a wedding breakfast meal and have a relaxed afternoon tea as refreshments etc with a welcome drink for the "dayguests" and then the evening guests come from 7.30pm on wards. I have been to many wedding evening do and the evening guests very rarely arrive at the exact time on the invite usually as they don't to be the first there so they usually arrive around half hour later or so. Personally i would just do the 2 groups esp if you have certain people who you would only prefer there in the evening.

HTH x

We are having a 4pm ceremony followed by 'drinks reception' for family only (ceremony venue won't hold any more, also avoids friend invite politics!), then straight to evening reception with buffet, speeches etc. to which all friends and acquaintances are invited.

Thanks for you replies!!

I had always thought we would have a really small ceremony with very close family. One thing that has sort of put a spanner in the works there is that I have a lot of family abroad- I had never expected they would all travel over for the wedding as it would be a huge financial and organisational commitment for them. However, they are all really excited and are talking about booking flights, making a big trip of it etc, which is great as it would be lovely to have them all here, but I feel like if they come from thousands of miles away then we can't very well say "you're not invited to the ceremony". Then that also sets a precedent for same relatives from DP's side to be invited to the ceremony.

I do like the sound of ceremony with family and close friends (around 70 people with family from here, family from abroad, close friends) and then others (around another 40 people- less close friends, work colleagues, parents' friends etc) to arrive after the ceremony at around 6pm in time for hot buffet and party to follow.

Luckily there is no issue with "capping" numbers so can have as many as we want at the ceremony- I can envisage a handful of friends that it will be difficult to decide whether they are close enough for the ceremony!!

We're a 4pm wedding too, but we've gone for the option of inviting all of our guests for the whole day.

The reason we chose this was because most of our guests will be travelling for more than 1 hour to get to our wedding venue, so we weren't comfortable asking them to travel so far only for the evening. This may not be something you need to think so much about if most of your guests are local though.

I think the thing that stuck out most for me was you saying your H2B would like the ceremony to be a bit more intimate. In that case, having some guests arrive later seems to be the right option. Good luck with finding the best way to make it work for you!

Ah Blonde Viki - cross posts about the non-local guests!! Thanks for your reply ?

FWIW, and I know it's not the same with family, but we've friends travelling quite a way just for the evening reception, but I don't feel too bad as they will still get the more 'fun' weddingy bits of speeches and cake-cutting, and our TOG will be hanging around to capture them, too. Also OH strongly takes the view that he doesn't want to waste any more of people's weekends than neccessary, and is glad to 'spare' friends the tedium of the ceremony!!!

We're 4PMers too!

Were having about 60 to the church, then onto reception venue for drinks and canapes.

Evening guests to arrive from 7pm for a BBQ from 7.30.

Cant decide wether to do speeches and cake cutting with just our church guests while having the nibbles. Or after the proper food infront of about 120guests :-S ... What do u all think?

So nice to have other people that are getting married later to help with these food and timing issues etc! x

We're having a 4:30pm wedding with 80 guest and sit down meal at 6:30. Personally, I didn't want an "evening do" guest list, but OH has lots of work friends who we don't want to invite to ceremony/sit down meal although most will have to travel an hour. My big concern is evening guests arriving whilst we're still eating!! The venue has advised us to put that the evening do starts at 8:30....I think this is too late but can't see an alternative as don't want to feel the meal is rushed! Argh! Sorry...was going to offer advice but turned into my own troubles lol. Well, you're not alone anyway!

Sounds very similar to my wedding!

Same situation - venue open to public with our ceremony at 4.00pm. We only had a small wedding - 60 guests invited to the whole thing so didn't have to worry about guests arriving early or us running late. As it happens, we did run late. We'd planned for dinner from 6.00pm to 8.00pm however it was 9.15pm by the time we'd finished (started at 6.30pm). However it was partly that we didn't need to rush iykwim.

If you're having a hot buffet which is for all (day and night guests) then I would arrange it so they arrived around 6.00pm and join in the drinks reception. This means you get your ceremony with family and can do photos and drinks with them before the other guests arrive. You might be able to get some photos of everyone then too if your photographer is still around?

I've been to a wedding where this happened. They got married somewhere else and we arrived at the reception venue and were there for when they arrived.

Thank you all for your replies!

psycho_jo, it sounds as though we're in a similar situation. As you say, that is one thing I would worry about if evening guests were to arrive after food, as it is all in one place (well there are a few different areas where people could wait I suppose). But say it was getting on for 8pm when I knew evening guests were due to arrive but we hadn't yet had coffees or my Dad was half way through his speech then I would be on edge, thinking "come on, get on with it!" which wouldn't be great obviously!! Or maybe I wouldn't, maybe I wouldn't even think of it... I just don't know. I would be reluctant to push the evening guest arrival time any later than 8pm-8.30pm as last orders at the bar are 11.30pm, departing at midnight so it doesn't really seem like a long time. Also, what about first dance - as I'd like to have the first dance to "kick off" the party - so say the evening guests were invited for 8pm, then we would have our first dance at 8.30pm, but what if people were still just arriving then, walking into the room as we danced, shouting "cooeee!" to their friends ha ha.

Argh! All that makes me want either everybody there all day or the guests that we don't have at the ceremony to arrive at around 6pm in time for the hot buffet and be there for the speeches, cutting cake, first dance etc just not the actual ceremony, which is what you said GeordieBarbie. The situations you describe with running late would set me on edge if I knew more people were due to arrive, but I wouldn't be bothered if everyone was already there, it would be much more laid back.

Thanks for all your thoughts and advice, it is nice to know others are having a later starting time too!