Timing for evening guests traveling 100miles

We were told to tell our evening guests to arrive for 7pm that is with a 2pm ceremony. It is not in a church and the ceremony and reception are in same venue. Travelling over 100 miles might be a big ask just for an evening reception and personally I don’t think I would do it but that’s my own opinion. We have about 70 for the day and only have about 16 extra to the evening at the moment and most of them are within 15 miles. The day guests are not all local as my family are from 250 miles away so it wasn’t feasible to invite most of them for evening only even if we did feel some of them on his side only deserved an evening slot 🙄

View quoted message That's completely understandable. Right now I am debating whether to invite them at all or try and scrape the money together to have them there all day. It's 100 miles as we've recently moved out of both our home towns we would do it nearer to our HT but it's more expensive and trying to keep costs down you just never know what's right or wrong 😔

Hi Chloe,

I'm Hannah from the Marketing team at Hitched and a Community Manager on these forums! It's worth speaking to the venue as there is no set time a wedding should start! It's your day so it should be totally up to you how you spend it.

For example, you could speak to your venue to see if you can have an earlier start time (e.g.- 12pm) which means once the ceremony and wedding breakfast is finished, you can allow evening guests to arrive at around 5-6 pm instead so they can enjoy more time with you!

Perhaps you can also include a list of local hotels in your invitations/wedding website so that guests have a choice of accommodation to stay at afterwards so that they can relax after their long journey.

Hopefully that helps! Please feel free to drop me a response if you have any other questions or want tips on how to make the most of this information on your invitations etc.

Hannah x

If i were you I would try and get the money together for all 70 to come to the whole day. Maybe look at having a later wedding at say 4pm so you can then have the meal at 6.30pm and then you wont need to provide evening food (if you were going to), which could save money? I would definatly source some local hotels as I dount people will want to drive all that way back, and I do think it is likely that if you invite people just for the evening they are probably not going to come all that way as it will be expensive as they will have to stay overnight. The other option is as you say to come back more locally, are you based in Southampton now? If yes then I am happy to try and help youfind somewhere as this is where we are based and there are some good options for lower budgets, so feel free to drop me a message.

If you cant find somewhere that is in your budget then the only other think would be to push it out a year so you can afford what you want. that is extreme but it would then allow you time to save up and really have the day you want with all the people you want there. Wishing you luck

View quoted message Thank you Charlotte we did actually discuss moving it back a year however Im then worrying about the costs still going up as we have the costs for 23/24. ATM it sort of feels like we can't really win. Yeah we are in Southampton now everyone else will be traveling from londy and Essex which is mainly family who would stay and then a few extra guests that I would like to be there all day but then since moving it does feel those guests can't be bothered with us so at the same time wondering if it's even worth inviting them( without sounding harsh) I won't lie I'm finding the whole thing very overwhelming and making me snappy all the time😔

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Ok so your wedding is booked here in Southampton? Where is your venue? It is so had, I have found that you really learn who your friends are when you plan a wedding and even now I wonder why I have some people on my day list as I barely hear from them anymore! Things can change a lot in the 2 years from planning to the actual day, and people you think would be definates when you start planning then become less improtant. The cost thing I totally get, have you asked your venue if they would hold pricing if you moved it? you never know they might agree. Or could you look at somewhere half way so the travelling is not quite so far for them and you could stay somewhere nearby or at the venue the night before? Dont let itoverwhelm you, is erasy to say I know, but you maybe need to take a time out and just reset. As i said, happy to chat and help with ideas if you want to message me X

Does it cost you extra to have the 20 turn up in the evening? I say this because you may want to consider that a lot may decline if it's far away - and is that worth it if only a few actually attend? If it doesn't cost you anything to add them then go for it, it's their choice!

I say this because recently we went to an evening 100+ miles away. A lot of our friends were really stressed about whether to go because it was a lot of money to spend on accommodation travel and time off to take just to go for an evening. In the end it was only us and one other couple that made the effort to go to the evening! Everyone else who was there had been there all day. We arrived at 5pm so a good chunk of time was spent there but personally we didn't feel it was worth it in the end, especially as we didn't even get a single free welcome drink so were paying for drinks all night as well.

Also, word your evening invite really carefully. This girl's invite strongly implied it was only the ceremony we weren't invited to, and as it started at 5pm, we - and the others who went - thought we were being invited to the meal onwards. Oddly, we were spoken to about things like dietary requirements, that there would be cake cutting, etc. (but turns out all that had happened by the time we arrived, hungry!)

View quoted message Hi Chloe,


Oh gosh how awful. No thankfully the 20 extra for the evening is included in the price. Whereas to have them for all of it would cost an extra £900. I would love to have them there but as I said weve lost a lot of contact since I moved. For the evening they would miss the reception breakfast but would be there for the cake cutting and the evening buffet. Thankfully there is a premier Inn literally around the corner if people wished to attend the evening and stay so weren't obliged to stay in the hotel were using. Tbh if I knew who would actually come I'd happily pay for them but as some won't give a guaranteed answer until last minute I don't want to lose that money I could use else where. It's so hard 😭

Our ceremony is midday and we're asking evening guests to arrive from 6pm

View quoted message Sounds like you’re doing everything right in my opinion ☺️ Invite them for the evening, give them the details that there will be a buffet so they can plan their meals and the premier inn option as a cheaper place they may choose to stay. Given the circumstances, I’d definitely be saving that £900 esp since you’ve lost contact a bit and put it towards a lovely honeymoon! ♥️