Time of Wedding Ceremony

Personally I think the earlier the better, as the day will fly by.

Our ceremony is at 1pm, wedding breakfast 2pm, up to evening venue for 5pm ish, then we have a few things planned to fill time until 7pm when evening guests arrive.

People expect to have a bit of waiting around at weddings, and won't mind (or shouldn't!).

I think move it to 2pm. You haven't said how far you are travelling between the registry office and the reception venue but you're only allowing 2 hours to do the ceremony, photos and all sat down for the start of the meal, that is quite tight if you're in need of a rest too.

Hi, I am exactly the same as you. 3pm registry office, 5pm meal, and 7.30pm evening do. I personally think 3pm is fine as the registry office is only 30 mins max, which leaves an hour and a half for photos and for guests to sit down for dinner (reception venue only being 10 mins away by car).

Good luck with your planning x

We're going for a 3pm ceremony, 3:30pm cake, toast and a few photos (followed by some bedroom photos of just us two). Pre dinner drinks at 6:30pm and dinner at 7pm. After that it's into the bar until everyone drifts off naturally.

For my first marriage we had 12 noon ceremony, then welcome drinks and photos before the breakfast at 2:30pm. After that there was a break until 7/7:30pm when the evening guests started arriving and to be honest I really didn't like the long gap. It was great to sit down and kick my shoes off for a bit but it got rather boring compared to the hustle/bustle of the rest of the day.

Ours is half 1 ceremony, 2-4 reception drinks and photos, 4-6/half 6 dinner and speeches, evening photos for the two of us, DJ from 7, cake cutting and first dance around half 7, buffet at 9. Our photographer requested 2hrs for photos after the ceremony to have enough time to fit everyone in and not be running around and missing things. I went to a wedding where the ceremony was at 4pm though and it was lovely, so totally down to personal preference! My grandparents are looking forward to the little rest between dinner and the evening kicking off

Our timings are;

2pm ceremony

2.30 - 4pm reception drinks

4pm wedding breakfast

6pm speeches

6.30pm changing room around - guests go outside for a break or to the bar

7.30pm evening reception

8.30pm cutting of the cake and fist dance

9pm evening food

Just a more of a realistic heads up for you and every one else here is that people never allow enough for things like getting into the room - last stops to the loo and sitting down.

I see yours like this

3.30pm all outside just married, -congrats-huggs, confetti.

Fight the crowds and leave at 3.45.

By the time everyone has got to the reception it will be 4pm

Which now only leaves 1 hour for photos right? ---- no it dosent because you want to sit at 5 so that means people being called in at 4.45 even without any receiving line, so now its 45mins for the photos.

Ours is similar to yours, we're doing 2.30pm ceremony, 4.30pm meal, 6.30pm speeches, 7.30pm evening bash. But ours is all in the one place, so no travelling between ceremony and reception. And we aren't having many 'formal' photos - our photographer reckons we can get through them in about 20mins.

OH was worried about gaps and guests hanging around bored, whereas I am more worried about the day going by too quickly! Hopefully we have a happy compromise - will soon see, anyway!

Our wedding ceremony is at 2pm - think it's about an hour as it's a church service.

Photo's from 3-4pm reception drinks 3.30 until 4.30pm meal from 5pm and thinking music followed by band at 7-7.30. Don't know if this is too long a gap but we have to get all the guests a few miles down the road. We are not having seperate evening guests.

Ours was a church service, so was about 45 minutes long. It started at 12 noon and by the time everyone was then out of the church etc it was about 1pm.

We the had a long journey to the reception venue (~1 hours drive) so we were there around 3:00 by time photos at the church were done and we had 'escaped'.

Dinner was meant to be served at 5:00 but in the end we postponed that on the day by half an hour as our photos took ages and everyone was having a great time.

Dinner was then 3 hours including the speeches, and our first dance was just before 9pm.

Having said all that, I would highly recommend moving your ceremony to 2pm. That will give you more time, and make for a more relaxed feeling. The guest will entertain themselves having a drink or two, getting to know each other a bit, and trying to hunt you down for a photo!

We're planning on:

12noon- church ceremony

1.15pm- arrive at reception venue

1.30-3.30pm- drinks/canape reception and photos

3.30pm- recieving line

4pm-6pm- wedding breakfast

6pm-7pm- I'm hoping for a bit of a break for us and our guests to freshen up/have a little rest!

7pm- evening reception

I would definitely try and move your ceremony to 2pm if you can : )

This sounds perfect, see what you have done there 1.15 arrive but then drinks/canape and photos at 1.30 leaves time to get out the car sort yourslef out re-attach your veil; that the groom sat on, everyone else to trickle in after going home and feeding the dog on the way etc. So many times people say oh arrive at 1.15 and count the mingling, drinks, photos from then.

So for you all mingling, drinks, photos done by 3.30 and start line up to sit for 4, whereas people usually say oh we dont sit untill 4 and dont think about getting people into the room.

To the origional poster -- go for 2pm

We are having our ceremony at 4pm, but this is because we aren't having a separate day and evening do and we are just having everyone. Everything is in the same place and we are having a BBQ instead of a 3 course meal so that bit shouldn't take as long I probably would have gone an hour or so earlier given the choice, but the only times available were 12pm and 4pm and I thought 12 was a bit early for the style of our day, not to mention the fact we would have to feed everyone again later with it being such a long day, and that would totally defeat the object of just having one reception to save costs and be able to invite more people!

We're having the ceremony at 3pm, drinks, canapes and photos 4:30pm-6:30pm, meal at 6:30pm, speeches at 8:30pm, dancing from 9pm. We're not having separate evening guests so it means people can travel down on the day instead of having to pay for two nights in a hotel ?

Hoping for a ceremony at 1. We're getting married in november so want it as early as possible to still have good light for photos. But I wouldn't want to do it any earlier as it would be a stress getting me and 5 bridesmaids ready in time!