is it normal to invite evening guests to the ceremony?

For a church ceremony yes it is. You need to word the invitations carefully though so that it is crystal clear. Say something like we'd love you to join us for our evening celebration of our wedding on XXXX etc. Our ceremony is at XX time at XXXchurch - you'd be very welcome to come and see us get married.

And leave it at that

Nicely worded! Thank you :-)

I'm thinking about doing this, too, so glad to know this is relatively normal. We're going to have most people travelling so I'm assuming they'll stop over the night before and would fit in the church... thank you for this thread!

Make sure you word it carefully and clearly. Last summer I attended a church wedding to then find out the next part we could go to was the evening do. They only took family and closest friends to the meal after the ceremony. However this meant that we had to sit in a pub near the church for 4hrs till the bus they arranged to take us their evening do arrived. I won't lie - myself and majority of the other guests left in limbo were not happy about it. It hadn't been explained to us and we all just assumed we would go straight from the church to the reception. Ended up eating fish and chips from a place next door to the pub as we were all starving. Make sure your guests know what you are intending so dont find out on the day like we did. If we had known many of us would have arranged something like a decent meal or a ride home. I also know some of the guests went home when they found out and did not return for the evening do as they didn't want to sit around.

Make sure you word it carefully and clearly. Last summer I attended a church wedding to then find out the next part we could go to was the evening do. They only took family and closest friends to the meal after the ceremony. However this meant that we had to sit in a pub near the church for 4hrs till the bus they arranged to take us their evening do arrived. I won't lie - myself and majority of the other guests left in limbo were not happy about it. It hadn't been explained to us and we all just assumed we would go straight from the church to the reception. Ended up eating fish and chips from a place next door to the pub as we were all starving. Make sure your guests know what you are intending so dont find out on the day like we did. If we had known many of us would have arranged something like a decent meal or a ride home. I also know some of the guests went home when they found out and did not return for the evening do as they didn't want to sit around.

You need to be very clear with your wording. If people are coming from a long way away just for an evening reception, they may travel down on the day of the wedding and stay over that night, but not necessarily the night before. If you invite them to the ceremony and don't make it clear that there'll be a big gap in the afternoon they might be a bit miffed if they suddenly realise they've got to entertain/feed themselves for several hours in the middle, miles away from home!

I went to a wedding where I was invited to the service and then the evening do. It was fine as we lived really close by so could just go home for a couple of hours. I would say it would probably be a bit awkward for people who have come a long distance. One thing I would say is make it quite clear that thats what what your asking of people it was a bit confusing on their invite.

Glad its not just me flapping over this.

We have FINALLY after lots of flapping on my part desided to put in the evening guests invites - a little insert that gives the details of the church service and that people are very welcome to come to come see us get married the rejoin us in the evening for the real party to start