To want to eat lunch at lunchtime on my wedding day?

[whatever22]

I have been to many weddings. A fairly normal pattern for me is, get up/eat breakfast/get ready/travel to wedding location/watch lovely ceremony that occurs when I would normally be eating lunch (1-2), then hang around for painful h-o-u-r-s waiting for food which is bizarrely served at about 4pm, even though people must know there guests haven't eaten since breakfast due to having to travel to a wedding. (Sometimes there are canapes which give me the dilemma of snacking then not wanting to eat a big dinner in an hour, or avoiding them and feeling starving).

Now I am planning my own wedding all the venues I have talked to go with a similar schedule. I don't understand why this is considered a reasonable thing to do! What do people expect their guests to do? find somewhere for an early lunch in an unfamiliar town/whilst all dressed up before the ceremony? Just go without proper food for 8 hours? Eat canapes at lunch time and yet still want a huge 3 course meal at 4??

What I would like is to get married at 12, and have the wedding breakfast served at about 2. (there will be a buffet later in the evening at around dinner time). I think this will be nicer for my guests (not to mention me! I also wont have eaten since breakfast!).

But when I searched around for other peoples 12 o clock start weddings I can't find any examples of people doing this, they seem to still have the main wedding meal at 3-4pm!

Am I missing something? Is there some reason for not just putting the wedding meals at normal eating times? Would you hate a wedding that did this?

[Findtheoldme]

We got married at 12 and after the service and photos we were eating by 2:15.

[specialsubject]

there is no need for pictures to take an hour. Cut down on the cheesy cliched snaps which you'll only look at once and you can be feeding earlier.

or the plan B, ceremony as late as possible, snaps and then food.

[Sparklingbrook]

We got married at 4pm, and had meal but no evening do. Perfect.

[nottheOP]

We tend to have a quick McDonald's or similar on our way from the church to the Reception. If it's a all in one place wedding I'd have food in our hotel room if staying or a big brunch. You need an eating plan for a wedding!

[DoctorDonnaNoble]

We also served snacks during the photos. Didn't seem like there was down time as every one was milling and chatting. Reason ceremony was early was we got married on the 29th December. Wish I could do it all again!

[lanbro]

We had the ceremony at 3, at 4.30 we sat everyone down for speeches then had a hog roast and cold buffet which was replenished throughout the evening. We didn't have separate evening guests, everyone invited was there for the whole day

Your day, do what suits you !

[lanbro]

Like a pp I didn't eat anything after breakfast, didn't even see the hog roast as was too busy celebrating!

[DinosaursRoar]

It's unusual because most people don't want to cater more than one formal meal and one buffet or have to fund hours and hours of drinking, and people don't go home after the ceremony and meal before the evening, so if you have say the old fashioned 11am wedding, all done by 12, photos then food at 1-3pm, it is a long time until a 7pm evening event with nothing to do but drink, and people will get peckish around 5ish.

Royal weddings are midmorning, photos, then meal and speaches, but most importantly, everyone buggers off back to their london homes/hotels to change before the evening do - they don't have to hang around for hours in between!

When we got married, we plumped for a 3pm service, so everyone had time to eat before they arrived, we had a simple civil service so was done by 3:30pm, photos until 5pm, sit down meal then until about 7pm. Evening guests invited for 7:30pm (and we had our evening do in a different room to the day do so not needing lots of time in between for the staff to turn it around, you need to factor that in if you are using the same space), served buffet at 8:30pm.

[DinosaursRoar]

oh and at around 12, my bridesmaid pointed out the make up artist would be arriving soon and I should eat something before hand, by that point I was getting nervous but I'm glad she ordered me a sandwich from roomservice and made me eat it, I too didn't eat much of my wedding breakfast, was far too excited, but also was wearing a corset with a dress that also had a corset in it to give me a teeny tiny waist, could hardly breathe, let alone eat anything (I look fabulous on my photos though! )

[Lookingforwardtoholiday]

Most weddings I've been too are a 4pm ceremony at the venue, 5pm drinks and canapés while the B&G are having photos, 6pm dinner and dancing until 11 or 12 and evening guests arrive for dessert at 8.30 just in time to hear the speeches

[QueenOfThorns]

I know this wouldn't be for everyone, but we had the photos taken before the service, so our guests wouldn't be waiting around afterwards!

It was made easier to do it that way because we got married in the Netherlands, where they have different traditions. Rather than the groom waiting nervously in the church/registry office for the bride to show up, he comes to fetch her from her home (or hotel) and brings the bouquet with him. It would have been lovely, except that he was early and I had to scramble into my dress

[MillyMollyMandy78]

We avoided this problem and had a 4:30pm wedding. Ours was just a small do though so not sure how this would fit with the traditional big do.

[Jewels234]

So what I don't get about this at all is why, when people know what the pattern of a wedding is, do they not plan for it? So, snacks in your bag/lunch box in the car/service station on the way. Just eat at your normal times!

I got married at 1.30, canapés at 3pm, dinner at 5pm, buffet at 10. I would have been annoyed at any guest who moaned about food provision. We sent out timelines so people knew what would happen when, and follow up emails explaining the order of the day again. If grown adults can't plan their food around that then I'm shocked.

[OhBigHairyBollocks]

We had our wedding at 2.30pm, so people would eat lunch before they came. Food served at 5ish. We had a lot of kids eating.

[TheHouseOnBellSt]

Weddings are best when they begin at about 5.00pm in my opinion.

All day to get ready/travel then a nice quick service...and onto food and drinking and dancing!

[Cheby]

I don't understand why people find the timings at weddings so hard to manage (or maybe it's just people on here, I've never heard anyone complain in real life).

Get up, have big, late-ish breakfast that will tide you over till the afternoon. If driving a long way, leave 45 mins earlier and schedule time for a breakfast stop en route. If this is categorically not feasible (although no idea why it wouldn't be) take some sandwiches, eat in the car before you go in.

If taking DCs, take handbag/change bag full of snacks.

For my own wedding, I had some toast when I got up at 6.30am (to get to hair appointment), and bacon sandwiches and a glass of champagne when I arrived at the venue around 11am. Married at 1.30pm, wedding breakfast around 4 I think. No one was hungry because they were all adults and able to plan their day!

[LittleBearPad]

I'm surprised eating a canapé or two or five affects your ability to eat the wedding breakfast that much.

People will get sandwiches, brunch etc. An earlier wedding may mean they have to travel the day before.

But it's fine if you want a noon service. If you're travelling from church to the reception venue I think two hours is tight. If it's all in one place then it should be just about ok.

[ForalltheSaints]

All our family weddings have had the ceremony start at around 330-4pm, except for my grandparents as the boat for the honeymoon left at 6 (they married at 9am!). I think noon does present a food time dilemma.

[TheTravellingLemon]

We got married at 3 30. The only thing i would worry about with your plan is that it makes it a very long day for your guests and there's a lot of time to fill between the end of lunch and the evening buffet.

I have been to an early wedding before and it was lovely, but it finished at about 6.

[Headofthehive55]

We got married at noon, an hour for the church, another hour for photos. Sat down to the meal about 2:30 if I remember right.

Evening do in a different place so went back to my parent house with the majority of the people at the wedding. That was one of my favourite bits actually. Then all went to the evening do. It worked well for us.

[AlmaMartyr]

We got married at 2.30 with food at 5.30. People had lunch beforehand - church next to a pub who were prepared (and invited!) so had sandwiches etc ready for anyone driving a long way. Canapes at the venue too. I don't think anyone was hungry!

I think your plan sounds fine but it is a long day. We went to a wedding at 12 a couple of years ago. It was a fab day but it was looong. Our DCs are pretty good at weddings but had had enough by 7pm so we had to leave much earlier than we normally would because they were worn out (and so we were tbh, lots of standing around chatting etc). In fairness, food was at a more traditional time (4 or something) so that may have been part of it.

I love weddings though and I don't think you're missing a reason, so if that's what you want then go for it!

[MsAspreyDiamonds]

We got married at 12pm and had lunch with photos in between all ceremony, all the dinner courses & afterwards. So a good mixture of staged and documentary style photos evenly spread throughout the day.

[Pico2]

We got married at 11.30 or 12, had canapés straight after and lunch at about 2pm. We didn't have an evening do as we didn't want people to feel obliged to book a hotel. We did get takeaway for anyone still there at dinner time. We only had one level of guest.

Some venues refused to let us do that. Typically the ones that said 'and how many for the evening buffet?'

I think it is sad that weddings have been standardised into such a poor model. I particularly dislike the deafening music in the last few hours.

[EmberElftree]

We got married at 4pm Champagne and substantial canapés at 4.30pm while we had photos taken, dinner started around 6pm with speeches then served a big cheese board and wedding cake around 9pm to soak up the gallons of wine. Worked perfectly for us and our guests, not too boring hanging around or being starving but we did do it all in one venue which made it really easy for all.

[TeenAndTween]

We got married at 12, and were eating by 2:30 I think. The furthest that guests had to travel was only 90 minutes. There were a number of guests with children, some invited, some not. No one had to stay over, and we were all done by 6pm, no evening do, never even considered having one tbh as it wouldn't have suited a lot of the guest profile.