Please critique my wedding timetable

[BuffaloCauliflower]

You lot are always great for pointing out snags in plans others haven’t thought of. I’d be grateful for some critical eyes on my wedding day timetable.

We’ve changed this plan so many times trying to get what’s best for us, best for our guests, and doesn’t cost more than we can afford. Current thoughts are as follows. This is for all guests staying all day, no separate evening guests.

2.30pm - Church ceremony starts. Hopefully late enough most people will have been able to get lunch in before coming. Ceremony roughly an hour.

4-4.15pm - guests get to reception venue 5-10 minutes drive away, assuming ceremony takes until 3.30pm, allowing for some picture taking at the church, some general faffing and possibly waiting for some people doing car ferrying to go back and forth a couple of times.

4.15pm - crisps/dips/nuts/olives. Drinks. Some entertainment TBC.

5.30pm? 6pm? (I cant figure this out. Is 6pm too long from arrival?) wedding breakfast, which is substantial sharers, hot fork buffet, mini dessert options - the food is really important to us and won’t be scrimped on.

7.30/8ish - speeches. Will be 4-5 of us speaking so needs plenty of time.

8.30ish - cake cutting, first dance.

9/9.30pm - Cheese (cheese wedding cake) laid out with crackers, naice breads, chutneys, olives, nuts.

Finish - Wrap up whenever, private land so don’t have to be out by any time.

How does this sound? What am I missing? Would you be hungry? Thanks all.

Dinner at 6pm so you have enough time for your photos

Depends if you’re having photos at venue as well. The photographer will want at least 30/45 mins to organise families and couple shots. Otherwise earlier food is ok.

I’d have the meal a bit earlier as people will only have been able to have a quick lunch whilst getting ready travelling.

I got married at 2.00pm. Ceremony was about 40 mins. I was adamant I didn’t want photos taking an age but my parents had arranged a horse drawn carriage as a surprise so we went to the local park for a few more photos. Guests left for the reception around 3.30pm. We arrived around 4.15pm. Drinks were available (canapés weren’t a thing ).
We greeted all our guests in a receiving line then we sat down to the meal (3 course roast dinner) around 5pm. Speeches were about 6.30pm. We then cut the cake.

Evening guests arrived around 7.30pm. At 8.30pm we had a full buffet with a whole salmon as it's centrepiece plus lots of cooked meats and nice bread.

I’m just adding that 4-5 speeches sound fine to me, the speeches are a lovely part of a wedding

Glad to hear I’m not the only speech lover

Hopefully crisps/nibbles etc at 4 will keep people going until a dinner at 6? I think I need to check timings with photographer, we’re not having loads of group pictures, we don’t want people hanging around for ages.

I think there’s too long a gap between arriving at the reception venue and sitting down to eat. It’s not about being hungry, it’s about standing up for two hours doing chit chat, not wanting to drink too much before eating. One hour is the max for that.

I also agree that 4-5 speeches will be bore-fests for the majority of your guests. If you must have that many you must keep them all very short. Like 5 minutes short.

Re photos - unless you have a particularly beautiful venue and a spectacularly ugly Church, I'd go for all group shots at the Church, once they are "released" then guests can never be found for photos.
Uncle Jim will have gone for an afternoon nap. Aunty Mary will have gone off for her medication. Fred and Sue will have decided to stop off en-route to the Reception to pick something up at the shop. Bill and Jane will have ignored the instructions and got lost. Peter will have wanted to take the car home but his lift never turned up. Karen will have gone off to the toilet. Bert and Ivy will have decided to go and get a nice cup of tea instead of any of that Pimms malarky. etc.,etc.
Best tip EVER is to get the photographer to start with the biggest group you want to have, then start allowing people to leave. So 'All Buffalo's dh's extended family please for the first photo',, then peel off so have just his Grandparents (while they are near), then just his house family. Then whole of your extended family, then your house family etc. Your BMs + Best Man will know they are needed and be much less likely to be missing if you want some of the smaller group ones once you get to the Reception.

6.5 hours from arrival to the church to cake cutting is a long time. Most people won't feel they can leave until after the cake is cut.

2.30pm - Church ceremony starts.
4-4.15pm -arrive at hotel
4.15pm - crisps/dips/nuts/olives. Drinks. Some entertainment TBC. Cut this out- aw ate of time- get straight into the meal.
5.00pm at the latest food. Why do you need 1.5 hours for?
6.30 speeches. Will be 4-5 of us speaking so needs plenty of time.
7 pm cut cake

I think you’re overestimating your timings OP. I would imagine that most people will be at the venue (if it’s 5-10mins away) for 3.30pm or thereabouts and that leaves almost 2hrs for mingling, which is far too much (and the worst part of any wedding imo).

I’d have the dinner start earlier and try and cut the speeches down. 5 speakers is an awful lot and let’s face it, nobody speaks for just 5 minutes. I hate the speeches part. It generally bores me to tears unless a) extremely funny or b) extremely sentimental/sad.

5-7 mins (per speaker) of thanking people for coming and saying how well suited the bride and groom are (could they say anything different?!) is just a snoozefest for the guests who have had a few drinks, have a full stomach and just want to crack on with the evening festivities. I find it akin to the class assembly on the last day of term.

Buffets sound fine though - although some desserts in the evening would usually be expected?

I think people will be very hungry by the time the food comes. Obviously, they won’t be able to have their lunch just before the service. Or when they’re driving to the service.

where i come from lunch is fairly strict at noon with supper at 5 so stretching from noon to 6 is no big deal
BUT in my experience people eat fast. i can't imagine it taking 2 hours for a buffet meal.
last wedding i went to had 20+ tables, by the time the first table had finished eating they were still calling table 15 up to serve themselves...there was hardly any food left by the time they called table 24.

I’d be disappointed at the cheese course as I’m not a lover of cheese. Is there no chance of some desserts then too? Cupcakes? A load of Costco desserts and cakes are easy enough to add to the table

Another hand up here to say that the speeches are the most tedious part. The Venn diagram of your guests means that you never get everyone 'getting' the references and in jokes.

I'm getting married next month. DP is saying a few words after the meal to thank people for coming, and say I look beautiful .
And that is it. Everyone will breathe a sigh of relief and then we can fire up the disco.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a really good speech at a wedding, people are rarely used to public speaking and it is an art, not everyone can do it. And what is there to say apart from thank you and a toast to the married couple ? Some speeches can be really embarrassing and no one really wants to hear stories from childhood. I refused to have speeches at (both) my wedding(s) .

5 speeches is fine, if they are short and entertaining/heartfelt or both! Went to a wedding recently where photos were used to great effect in one of the speeches. The speeches were probably the best bit if the wedding. At ours I spoke, my brother who gave away spoke and my dh did.

All sounds great to me but just let people now.

I don't think crisps, nuts and olives on arrival are a great idea - everyone is dressed in their best but will end up with greasy, salty fingers. Either canapes or nothing at this stage. I would also offer an alternative to cheese in the evening, maybe something sweet like small cakes, Brownies, not from Costco though, we get them at work sometimes and they are not good.

I agree with keeping the speeches short too, I agree that it's old fashioned when only the men speak and that it's good in principle to have the bride say a few words, but really, keep the whole thing to 15 mins or less.

I think it sounds lovely. I find the photos part tends to last longer than expected as people needed in particular groups disappear off.
I love speeches unless they are boring or repetitive. I think 4-5 would be fine as long as they don’t go on too long (it’s often hard to hear them anyway) and provided people are well fed and watered. I’ve been to some weddings where there’s been a mix of speeches before and after which had worked quite well (better for smaller numbers of guests).
One thing that I liked at a recent wedding was a rough schedule shown on the invitation so the guests knew that they needed to sort out their own lunch.

None of you people would survive an Irish Wedding! Ceremony at 1(an hour) maybe a group photo there..guests all go to nearest pub for one then onto venue while wedding party go off somewhere nice for an hour or two for photos..guests get drinks/tea/finger food at venue while they wait and once b&g arrive everyone drinks some more. Called to dinner about 5.30 which is probably 6 in reality ...loads of speeches-5 is a minimum! ...huge meal ...evening guests arrive about 9pm first dance probably near 10...party all night

Sounds good. Photographs always take longer than people expect so make sure there are plenty of nibbles (and drinks?). Eating at 6 is ideal if you've made it clear you're expecting people to have eaten at lunchtime.
Hope you have a lovely day.

Will take note on the evening desserts - I wouldn’t have thought people would want dessert at 7.30 and then dessert again at 9.30? But maybe I’m wrong!

The starter will be sharing platters on the table so people won’t be waiting ages to eat something. It won’t be anywhere near 20 tables either, and we’re paying for more people food wise than are actually coming so no chance of food running out. This is a big issue for me. But we absolutely didn’t want another boring wedding 3 course meal of roast chicken... we’re going big for the food.

I don’t want rounds and rounds of group photos with every aunt and uncle either, there will be a few but mostly more candid shots later. There will be a bit of milling at the church for photos before moving on though.

There’s also no one who could pop home between church and reception unless they wanted a really long drive. Reception is in a private field/marquee so once there nowhere to get lost to either!

The reception needs to start immediately after the ceremony (given that its so close) so that people arrive in their own time to drinks and nibbles and aren’t left sitting around waiting.

If I was going to a church wedding at 2.30 I wouldn’t need to have it explained that I need to eat beforehand.

Definitely bring the food forward to 5.30, buffets take a silly long time to get everyone eating. I regret doing that and not silver service at our wedding.

@Racecardriver oh everything will be there set up already, we’re doing it all ourselves so it has to be!