Invite wording - ceremony and eve do but not wedding breakfast!

I would make it clear that the invite is for the evening, but then put in a line saying something like ' if you would also like to join us for the ceremony, it will be at ..............'

We will be wanting to do something similar ourselves so may well take ideas off here too!

A broad idea might be:

"We are pleased to invite you to be present at our wedding ceremony on ……………………… at……..

After the ceremony the bride and groom will be departing to attend a private family wedding breakfast (or 'luncheon' if you prefer) however we would be delighted if you would join us again for our evening reception starting at ….. pm at …….. "

I did something similar. I put on our info sheet that all guests would be welcome at the church, and we did have a few extras I think

Write the invitation as just an evening thing, but put after the details that they are welcome to join you at the ceremony, just make sure you write from 2-4pm, or whatever the times will be, so they see a definite gap between the ceremony finishing and the evening starting x

We had an evening invite with the time of 7:30 clearly stated on it, then underneath it said 'All evening guests are very welcome to join us for the wedding ceremony at XXX for 1pm'. HTH.

I agree it´s best to phrase it as an evening invitation (with the time). Then put (either on an info sheet or below) that they are welcome to attend the ceremony from x to y pm. You could perhaps add, for extra clarity, that regrettably you are unable to accommodate them at the wedding breakfast.

If you put details of the ceremony first, I think it´s more likely people will confuse it for a day invitation.