Please help me decide ceremony time I'm having a complete mare

[tornbride1]

Wedding is on a Sunday in August. We wanted the ceremony at 2pm but it isn't available and we can't change the date.

Can choose between 12pm and 4pm.

Having 30 day guests and 40 evening guests. Definitely can't afford to have everyone as a day guest.

Here are the venues suggested timings and neither is ideal and it's really bothering me. Help me decide please

12pm Ceremony Timings

11am Guests to start arriving
12pm Ceremony
12:30pm Drinks Reception, Canapes & Photos
2pm Call through to Marquee / Guests take seats
2:15pm Wedding Breakfast and optional speeches before/after
7pm Evening reception / evening guests to arrive (if any)
8pm Evening food

4pm Ceremony Timings

3pm Guests to start arriving
4pm Ceremony
4:30pm Drinks Reception, Canapes & Photos
6pm Call through to Marquee / Guests take seats
6:15pm Wedding Breakfast and optional speeches before/after
8:30pm Evening reception / evening guests to arrive (if any)
10pm Evening food

I'm amazed at how much of a chore weddings seem to be for so many people. Why are you all going to these events you seem to have so much contempt for? After all, doesn't MN decree that An Invitation isn't a Summons...?

As a guest, I'd think a 4pm start to be very odd for a wedding with defined day and evening parts. It would be so rushed, and travelling to something which starts just as the weekend is coming to an end is just odd.

As a guest, I'd much rather the 12pm. This is on the basis that it's the wedding of someone whose wedding I wanted to go to (and I'd enjoy being there/spending time with other invitees) AND that it followed your revised timetable so the gap between day/evening was less.

As the bride, I would definitely want 12pm. A 4pm start means the day would be over too quickly and there wouldn't be time to catch up with all the guests.

This is ok but over by 6pm would be better.

Ceremony, cocktails and canapes, meal/speeches, dancing. Job done. Partyers can continue on elsewhere.

We had a Covid delayed wedding so while we'd originally booked a 2pm ceremony time, the only time the Registrars had available on our new date was 12pm, so our timings looked like yours and it was fine for us.

In reality, the dinner takes a couple of hours, so was finished around 4.30-5pm with evening guests arriving around 7.

As we were at a hotel and the majority of guests were staying overnight, it gave everyone the chance to go and check in and take a bit of a break (believe me, there were some than needed the opportunity to sober up in time for the evening!). It gave us a bit of time as a couple to just step away and have some "us" time and get some more photos around the grounds.

For us the whole day seemed to flow pretty well and no-one seemed to be sitting around bored waiting for the evening to start.

Definitely earlier time on a Sunday. Unless everyone you know are teachers then most people aren't going to stay late on a Sunday so embrace the daytime party.

I had a 4pm ceremony and really regret it. The day was so rushed. People had naturally had lunch or big breakfasts so between that and the canapes they were stuffed at dinner and really sluggish afterwards. The evening food wasn't even touched. There was also confusion on the part of some guests who thought they were evening-only guests and were pleased but felt a little awkward when the ceremony took place.

Overall the main downside was the rush factor. You can't speak to anyone pre-ceremony then there are photos and other bits of admin, then you have to sit and eat for a little bit, then there are people you must talk to. It leaves very little time for people you would like to talk to or just to enjoy the day.

Yes you're right.
I'm torn!

If you do it the way you're planning, it's 30 day guests x £85 plus 40 evening guests x £12.50 which is £3050

If you had everyone all day it would be 70 x £69 which is £4830

So you need to save an extra £1780 in the next year, and/or make some savings on other things like flowers. It's £150 a month if you're looking at just saving it up, could you manage that?

I get that the figures sound large but you "only" need an extra 2k which is small in wedding terms and would make your life so much easier.

The amount you'd spend on photobooths, games etc could be put towards the food so you can have everyone all day with one meal. (And I think you could do that with the early start as well, if you make the evening meal late enough.)

Definitely earlier unless you can come to some sort of arrangement where you can start later and have no evening guests.

Sunday weddings are generally a bit of a pain as a guest as you either need to take the Monday off work or leave at a semi decent time so I would prefer an earlier start / earlier finish.

In the nicest way if I was "only" an evening guest I wouldn't be taking the Monday off work anyway so probably wouldn't bother if I wasn't invited til 8pm.

100% 4pm. Far too much hanging around to get bored in otherwise.

@Priggishsausagebore maybe small in wedding terms but not small for us. It's just not affordable.

We have Photo Booth and 4 different large lawn games for £300 with the venue.

An extra £150 a month for a year sounds like nothing but we're already saving almost £1000 each.

I feel that there's just no simple solution to keep everyone happy/suit everybody's wants and needs so something will have to give.

Thanks all I appreciate the advice.

8.30pm arrival on a Sunday? I’d decline, that’s far too late

Have you considered doing the "official" bit a couple of days earlier and using a celebrant for your wedding? This way you won't be limited to the times the registrar has and could have your 2pm wedding, you'll also have a lot more control over your ceremony and have it as personalised as you wish

Well remove those! They're really useful at a big wedding where there's lots of hanging around. But totally unnecessary for a small wedding. And even if you find a way to have your evening guests during the day you're still having a fairly small wedding.

4pm will be a rush. I had a 4pm one with no evening do. We didn't finish until 9.15

We had a 4pm wedding, although in a church so took around 50 minutes. We had a 15 min drive to our reception venue, we didn't finish the wedding breakfast and speeches until about 10pm!

We did it intentionally because we didn't want to feed people twice and we didn't want evening guests.

I think with evening guests you're going to have to go with the earlier time. I assume with only 30 people, most people will know each other and it should be a lovely occasion! But different if there will be people who don't know others there.

So it's currently £3050 for food to do 40 in the day and an extra 30 at night. If you divide that by the 70 total guests that gives you £43.50 per head. I would just ask the venue what they could do for that budget. I'm sure they will have some options in between the full sit down meal and the £12.50 evening buffet.

You'd still be spending the same but could have everyone there from 4pm rather than day/evening guests.

There's advantages for them too staffing wise with only having to serve one lot of food! Plus more people there all day spending money on drinks

It's not really fair on evening guests to start so late. I think you either need to opt for earlier or adjust timings so evening guests are invited at 7.30. You could reconfigure to drop dessert completely from the sit down meal and have a dessert buffet for all (including evening only) with speeches at 7.30 for instance

And drop evening food

Our wedding was pretty much the 4pm timetable, though we didn’t do speeches. It worked great. Evening dancing and drinking from 8-midnight is plenty of time! I don’t honestly think you’ll need 2 hours and 15 minutes for dinner. People will be absolutely wasted if everything kicks off at 11am.

But I would talk to the venue and see what they could do with the total budget adjusted so everyone comes at 4pm. There's lots of ways they could potentially do it but you need to hard negotiate!

These days the speeches tend to be grim. Drop that except for one toast, to help condense the schedule.

I didn't realize it was a Sunday. Noon to 6pm would be plenty for most people. Just invite everyone to that and think of it as a lovely afternoon tea dance instead of an evening disco.

12pm you pay a fortune for one day, enjoy it!