I have a question my coctail hour is going to start at 8:15pm. It is a friday night wedding. What time do you think is a good time for the Church?
If you start at 7pm you should have plenty of time : But it depends on how long your service is going to be, and how far away the reception hall is from the church.
Check with your church first. Our church only had specific hours that they do wedding ceremonies. If that isn't a problem I would say a 4:30 or 5:00 ceremony would be fine. Our ceremony is at 3:30 and the cocktail hour starts at 6:30. Good luck
There are several factors that come into play.
What is the travel time between the chuch and the reception?
Does the Church have restictions on time? If there is a 5:00 Mass, it may conflict with your plans...
How many guests do you expect at the Church? We had over 125 and the receiving line took almost 45 minutes.
Our Church was 4 miles from the reception site. We had an 11:00 AM Ceremony - the shorter version - 20 minutes, and the receiving line took about 45 minutes. The Photographer had us quickly pose for some photos at the alter (it felt very rushed) and then some pictures on the steps of the church, exiting, by the limo, etc. Also felt very rushed, but it may have just been the excitement of the moment. Our cocktail hour started at 12:30 and that`s about when we arrived.
So I would leave about an hour after the end of the ceremony minimum, plus travel time if it is much of a distance.
Ideally, I`d say about an hour and half after the end of the ceremony, plus travel time should give you time to have a receiving line, pose for some photos, and get to the reception on time. If you leave much more than that and your guests will be wondering what to do with the spare time before the reception and may just decide to skip the ceremony. Plus, with a Friday night, if it's too early a lot of guests may have trouble getting there after work.
I would think you want to keep in mind, that even though it is a Friday night, the cocktail hour is starting pretty late, meaning your reception will be going til after 1:00, if I`m not mistaken. If you make the ceremony several hours ahead of the cocktail hour, it will end up being a long, long day for everyone, especially you, your groom, family and wedding party. Consider that photographers will want to be at your house two hours before the start of your ceremony as well, so everyone needs to be done at that time.
One of the recent weddings we attended had a cocktail hour of 8:00, and many guests left after the ice cream and cake. And that was a Saturday night. In this case, the ceremony started at 4:00.
Are you having a ceremony or a Mass? I am having a ceremony only and it starts at 5PM - it will probably last about 20 to 30 minutes and by the time I'm through with the receiving line. I'll probably be out of there by 5:45 or maybe a little later. My cocktail hour is actually starting at 7:30 PM and the reception hall is about 45 minutes away fropm the church. It really depends on how much time you want to spend on pictures. We're having mostly candid shots done - so I don't think we will spend too much time on pictures between the church and reception. Hope this helps a little.
We are having our ceremony at 3:30pm- it should last 45mins- then with a receiving line- 30 mins- that brings us to 4:45pm- then we are taking all of our family pics at the church that gives us another 30-45mins. That puts us at 5:30pm- the church is 15-20mins away from the reception site (but it is a Friday night so there will be traffic). Our cocktail hour starts at 7:00. We are going to take pictures in Stony Brook and on the docks in Port Jeff before the cocktail hour.
It was important for us to have some extra time to take pics at certain locations.
Our guests who are not family will be done at 4:45pm or 5:00pm with a 20-30min (depending on traffic) puts them in Port Jeff at 5:30pm. That gives them an hour and a half until the cocktail hour starts. We are putting together a list of fun things for people to do in PJ for the time in between- PJ is a good place for people to walk around. I hope people don't get to upset about the time but we did not want to rush our pictures.
