Valuable lesson learnt - Timing is everything

Isn't this part of the fun at a wedding? Not to be horrible to you, but I can't see why this would have been a problem.

We think our meal will be done by 5.30-6ish and evening guests arrive at 7.30. The only entertainment planned is my friend doing charicatures but obviously that won't keep everyone busy for over an hour.

I am hoping that my guests won't see it as 'sad' but will enjoy sitting around chatting and having a drink! For others it will be a chance to freshen up, for the older guests maybe to catch their breath a little bit, for everyone else they will get stuck into the bar and the beautiful patio areas if it ever stops raining.

I think it felt like that more becuase we had been waiting around a lot all day already

x

This is the time i love at weddings- where you get to chat/mingle etc- i too was at a wedding last week and spent most of the ''inbetween'' time chatting with friends i've not seen for ages

Got to say if kids are tearing the place up their parents should be dealing with it. I think it's incredibly rude to your hosts to let the kids run wild and distructive

It was embaressing tbh there was a mini golf area outside and how someone never got hurt i dont know the grass was ruined b the time the kids had finished

they were going stir crazy i think i just wasnt expecting the day to go how it did if that makes sense

x

I dont think entertainment has to be planned for every minute but 3 hours sitting around with no music is a long time!

Wow this sounds painful. We had a long wait at my cousins wedding last weekend but there were canapes and lots of free flowing drink

I dont know, i am sure the couple did the best they could on their budget. Not everyone can even entertain the idea of entertainment as it just doesnt fit the budget. I would be quite happy to sit around catching up with friends and family and have done so many times at weddings.

I don't know how venue worked but we are having one arrival drink only and anyone is more than welcome to go to the bar themselves if the one isnt enough, whilst water will be available endlessly whilst we have our pictures taken. I think this enough, frankly, i dont have the budget to supply copious amounts of drinks to guests whilst we have pictures taken.

I do agree though that a bit more than crisps could have been provided, since you probably wouldn't have been able to have lunch, especially the little ones going so long without anything proper to eat! I may have planned some sandwiches if i had a tight budget, so people had something substantial.

We are having a Civil ceremony starting at 2pm recommended by the venue, although i suspect we wont get going till a little after. I hope my day pans out ok in the end, I dont want it to be a military operation with timings and god knows some things will be quicker than we thought and some things will take a lot longer. I hope at no point my guests feel our best efforts for our big day weren't good enough or that we could have done with something else to make their day better, after all it is our day.

As for the children creating havoc, shame on their parents! I hate it when parents could care less about what their children are doing, so disrespectful.

Sorry I cant use the quotes on ny phone but I agree with pandora.

At my first wedding, despite initially starting late, we ended up finishing speeches meal etc with an hour to go before the evening. started. It was nice as we got to saya proper hello to everyone, guests who were saying could take some time to freshen up etc.

If youre worried about the flow of your day, decide where you want the important bits, service, evening start time and fill the inbetween beits in after. Ive built 3 half hr contingency slots into my day. one of my BMs can be a little slow to get going and the other is so meticulous with things, she can be just as bad at times!

Although I don't want guests to be bored at my wedding, I'm not providing entertainment in between the ceremony and meal, or between the meal and evening do. I will have music playing in the background but it is a wedding, not an entertainment show, and people have to be prepared to chat and entertain themselves for short periods of time. I'll only have 1 child there and his parents will be epected to make sure he behaves.

Yup! I agree with you.

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Seriously? I am not a parent but if me and my child had been invited to a wedding I would know to bring whatever toys or games needed to keep them occupied. Don't most parents do that? I wouldn't presume there would be entertainment laid on, and certainly wouldn't expect a bride and groom to inform me of such.

I think you're being a bit harsh. People are more than capable of amusing themselves for a while without entertainment, and if they get bored then that's a bit rude.

When we go to weddings then we know we won't sit down for the meal for a good few hrs after the ceremony, so either eat later (say, 11am) or have a big breakfast

I have to agree with the OP, 3 hours is a long time to be sitting around with not much going on. If you know loads of people at the wedding then you can mingle and chat and that's fine, but if you only know one other person then I can imagine I would get bored. You can't help getting bored if nothing is happening, people don't choose to be bored in order to be rude. If people make it obvious that they're bored then that's a different matter and yes that is rude, but it's inevitable that people will get bored if absolutely nothing is going on for hours.

But OH and I can sit in a pub chatting between ourselves, alcohol or no alcohol, for an evening (i.e. a few hrs) no problem. Is it not the same thing?

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I agree with you that OH and I can happily do that too, but we could just do that at home. If that was me I would have a nice time chatting to OH, but not any more of a nice time than I do sitting on my sofa every evening, and I think a wedding should be a bit more interesting/exciting than that. I'd end up getting bored out of frustration that I could just be doing this at home.

I agree with this 100%. No offence to anyone who did this/is planning on doing this, but I don't really see the point of going off on a big photoshoot for hours. I want to spend my wedding day with my loved ones and I want my photos to capture the memories of my day, not me pretending to be a model in some other location that has nothing to do with where my wedding even took place.

I will say though as a mother of 2 that keeping your kids from being loons is a lot harder than it looks!!! I would never think to take toys etc with me as I think that would just be rude. When there are other kids going to an event I let them play with each other!! I wouldn't let them tear the place apart but it is a lot to expect kids to 'behave' themselves for a full day, they need to run around and be a bit crazy!!!

Luckily the venue we have chosen is able to turn one of their rooms into a kid friendly zone with toys and tv for when they do get bored.

I will say though as a mother of 2 that keeping your kids from being loons is a lot harder than it looks!!! I would never think to take toys etc with me as I think that would just be rude. When there are other kids going to an event I let them play with each other!! I wouldn't let them tear the place apart but it is a lot to expect kids to 'behave' themselves for a full day, they need to run around and be a bit crazy!!!

Luckily the venue we have chosen is able to turn one of their rooms into a kid friendly zone with toys and tv for when they do get bored.

You could be doing this at home!? What, with the bride and groom in your living room??!

You're there because the bride or groom wants you there to celebrate with them, and everyone celebrates in different ways. You wouldn't go to a cocktail party and ask why there isn't a band playing later, you'd just expect to stand around and mingle because it's a cocktail party. The problem with weddings is that they can be any kind of party. If people get disappointed it's only because they've made their own assumptions and have preconceived ideas about would be happening. Go with an open mind and you won't be bored when you're not entertained for two hours.

I'm not having any entertainment except a background pianist. If people wonder where the bouncy castle/DJ/chocolate fountain is, it's their own fault for having such expectations!

At a cocktail party the hosts are generally there - weddings are a bit more complicated - it's easier to feel abandoned if the only people you know are actually the bride and groom, and they vanished 2 hours ago. From experience I'd say that long gaps are acceptable where there is adequate seating so that everyone can sit down in comfort, not in a bar with nowhere near enough seats for all guests (party shoes + standing = ow, especially if you're of the age where you feel you ought to let your elders have first dibs on the seats!) We've gone to the other extreme really - our main photoshoot is planned for the next day, so we can maximise our time with our guests, we hardly see lots of them, and there's not really that much free time for chatting, so decided to have the photos on a separate day, that way we can have lots of photos that are in a meaningful place for us, rather than just where is convenient

I think this is an important factor. 2 hours feels a lot longer when you're standing around outside "mingling" (especially if you don't know that many people to mingle with) with a single glass of bubbly than if you're sitting down comfortably somewhere or have something to do. Even comfy heels get sore after long periods of standing still!

We have 2 hours in between the ceremony time and the wedding breakfast in which the drinks reception is taking place. I cant afford canapes so I am going to have bowls of crisps and nuts for guests to nibble on.

I personally dont want to spend 2 hours getting my photos taken, I cant see how it will take much longer than an hour really, especially as I want the photographer to take shots during the drinks reception to catch those natural poses which can often be the best.

The last 2 weddings I went to I was a bridesmaid for one and had to be in a lot of the photos, I got bored after the first few and wished I had more time to mingle at the drinks reception. The last wedding did seem to take a long time after the ceremony and the breakfast but I didnt mind too much, I just enjoyed the chance to have a chat with different people (I only really knew my OH as well because it was his friends wedding)

The evening reception starts at 7.30 and the breakfast will probably be over by 6.30ish so it again leaves an hour or so where people are on their own. As a guest I would use this opportunity to have a wander around the place, check into the hotel if applicable and just chill before the entertainment began.

If people kick up a fuss about being bored then tough, I cant be expected to provide entertainment for them every second of the day.