Wedding day timings

We are having the ceremony and reception in the same place too and have invited evening guests for 7pm.

Ours is all in the same place too. Our ceremony is 1:30. Then drinks/games until food at 4. Evening guests at 7. Band starts at 8 and evening food at 9.

Depends on if you are having a wedding breakfast, I would ask your venue what the timeline looks like as they will be best placed to advise based on their turn around times. I would say 7 is a good time, but check as you dont want people arriving if the room is not ready. We luckily had 2 erooms so the evening was set up ready to go so after the meal at 6.30 everyone jsut moved to the 2nd room and the DJ started at 7

We’re 1:30 ceremony and evening guests arriving from 7:30pm. Our venue provided us with a timeline and we can tweak it a bit if needed, maybe ask your venue is they can do something like that for you

95% of my weddings the evening guests have been between 6.30 and 7.30

with most people leaving about an hour between the eve guests invite and the first dance.

95% of my weddings the first dance has been at 8pm

The later you have your first dance after 8pm the less evening party you will have as a lot of venues 12 midnight seems to be the end time.

A lot depends first on the time of your ceremony and then the nature of the meal and for how many people as obviously a sit down 3 course meal with 130 guests is going to take a lot longer than a buffet style with 50

As previously mentioned it depends on the venue and if they need to turn the room around as well as how many guests you have and therefore how long the wedding breakfast service will be. For example this is our timings:
2pm ceremony
2.30pm drinks, photos and garden games 4pm wedding breakfast 6.30pm leave the room and relax in the bar/ garden7.30pm evening guests arrive

It take around an hour and half with your vows and pic and everything so I say 3 or half 3

Its easy to overlook exact timings when talking about them for instance people normally say things like "its a 1pm ceremony with a meal at 2.30 so that 1.5 hours for photos" - only its not

A civil ceremony will last around 20 mins, then there is guests wanting to take pictures of signing of the register - a little giving the document to the couple ceremony then walking out so by the time everyone is outside with a drink i their hands its 1.30pm

So now you have only got 1 hour for photos -- but you haven't, because that 2.30pm meal could be the start of the service which means everyone could be called in at 2.20pm to be sat for 2.30.

So now you only have 40 mins for the photos, plenty of time if that's all you are doing - but this is the time when people will be congratulating you, saying hello, having drinks, canapés, going to the bar - the loo. Not to mention the extra time things take if its raining.

So I would say allow 1.5 hours after the ceremony (that's outside with drinks ) to be called in to eat with a view to eat 15 mins later.

Got mixed up with my own timings there - should be call to sit at 20.10 to eat at 2.30