Help with timing - 1.30pm ceremony, Timing of food?

My ceremony is 1pm and I still haven't properly worked out timings! Don't forget photo's after the ceremony and maybe when you arrive at the venue, that can take as little or as long as you want really

Have you factored in an hour or so once you arrive at the reception venue for mingling, photos etc if that is something you were planning to have? Usually people do not need much entertaining at this point, but some of our couples like have garden games, welcome drinks and that kind of thing during this time to help keep people occupied.

Usually we'd advise something like

1:30-2pm Ceremony

2-2:15pm people to greet and congratulate you/time to get outside

Bit of filler time for a confetti shot or a couple of group pics maybe?

2:30pm, everyone leaves for reception venue

* Travel time *

Arrival at reception venue

+ allow 1hour -1.5 hours depending on how many group photos you want

Start to eat around 1.5 hours after arrival at reception venue.

So based on your timings, i'd have a food time of approx 4-4:30pm

?

Of course it is totally up to you. If you're not bound by set venue times and you are marrying in summer when the days are longer there's nothing to stop you doing it the other way around and having food first if you prefer.

Thank you, I'm just worried about the guests starving to death!

We're getting married next May. I like the idea of games as it will be a very family friendly wedding - we have 2 girls aged 1 and 3, and most of our friends have similar aged small children, so I don't want it to be too boring, and lots of hanging about.

I'm not too bothered about photos, I know that sounds awful, but I don't like being photographed, I don't enjoy it, and I'm not looking forward to it. We can't afford a professional photographer (we can't afford much, it's a shoestring wedding on a budget of under £1000 for the whole lot), but my friend who loves photography is taking photos for us, and I'm hoping guests will take photos on their phones too.

I had a similar problem.

We arrived at the venue at 3pm after the ceremony and drinks reception. We did not want to have the sit down meal in the afternoon, so we had the wedding cake in the afternoon.

We cut the cake while bubbly was served out on the terrace and then sat down around 3:30pm for cake and coffee. It worked out really well and we still had enough leftover to serve for the midnight buffet.

Don't worry about guests starving to death too much. Obviously you don't want people to be hungry for hours on end, but if you went for 4-4:30ish that's fairly standard wedding day timings and i've never seen a guest drop from starvation as yet

If you're really worried and don't want to/don't have the budget for canapés you could always include a note in the invitations to say that food will be available from 4pm (for example) That way people will know to eat lunch beforehand if they're likely to feel peckish during the gap.

Thanks Sam&Louise, my sister says I'm flapping too much too!

Mai15bride, thank you, that's a great idea

I would second the idea of putting the time of the buffet on the invite so people know when they are going to eat and prepare accordingly. Out of interest, what time is your buffet? Are all the people attending the reception also attending the ceremony?

If people are attending the reception only at 3pm, I would assume they have had lunch.

We are having welcome drinks, no canapes partly because the buffet starts shortly after arrival and also because of the expense.

If you are having a sweet buffet or candy table, perhaps it is a good idea to have that set up on arrival so that if people are hungry, they can try to take the edge off a bit with some alcohol and sugar. We will be putting our sweet buffet out later in the evening (we are only feeding people once) so anybody who is feeling peckish can snack on that.

We are getting married at 1pm and our church wedding will last 1 hour.

We've then factored in another hour and a half after that for pictures, mingling etc - then half an hour to get to the reception venue. Hopefully we'll be sitting down to eat at about 4.30pm.

If you let people know when you're feeding them, then they can work out what they should eat before the wedding - I'm hoping people will have a big breakfast before ours!

AK wedding - haven't decided on the time of the buffet yet, maybe 4pm? Yes I think all the people attending will be attending the ceremony and the reception, I just need to check the number of people the register office holds! I'm expecting a total number of around 50-65

Thanks everyone

4pm should be fine if you have reception drinks and people know about it.

On a totally different (but equally important!) note, if guests are looking for easy, crowd-pleasing food ideas or late-night bites, checking out the Sonic Menu With Price and Picture 2026 is super helpful. It gives a clear look at burgers, drinks, slushes, and budget-friendly options perfect inspiration for casual events, after-parties, or next-day cravings.