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?

Our wedding was at midday and the reception at about 2.00 pm. But we didn't have an evening do, just the lunch. (That was more the norm at the time, ages ago).

I think as others have said, if you're also having an evening do, there could be a lot of 'dead time' after the meal.

If you do get married at lunchtime-ish and then also have an evening do, that is one hell of a long (not to mention expensive) time to feed and water your guests. Unless you expect them to bog off for a few hours in between - I have been to weddings where that happens and I absolutely loathe it.

We got married at 11 in our local church, then a short drive to a local independent restaurant for lunch at 1/1.30, everyone chose their own lunch from a menu, it was great food, we then went to the bar next door for drinks before leaving around 5/6pm for our first night hotel, which meant we had time to enjoy that too. Yanbu

I thought exactly the same as you op so we got married at 11.

I loved the gap between lunch and the evening do, I got to catch up informally in the bar with relatives I hadn't seen in ages, me and DH got time to just chat and laugh together without feeling 'on show' and I played in the gardens with 14 month old DS.

We might have had guests who hated the gap but there would've been plenty of time to go home in between if you lived locally (which most of our guests did) and if they still weren't happy, tough, I was blissfully happy on my wedding day.

Complete with full belly.

oh and be warned, some councils won't do civil weddings later than 4:30pm, because of their staff working hours.

Having thought about it further, your timings really are going ot be harder for people to plan to eat round, if you marry at 12noon, are done by 1, people going in at 2 to eat, they aren't going to be all seated and served until closer to 2:30 for starter, main they'll be getting more like 2:45/3pm. Youve done what you hated, and missed lunch! (Lunch time for most people is between 12noon and 2pm).

I would expect that sort of timing to do 2 substaintial meals, so your buffet needs to be quite generous.

Youd be better going earlier, so 11am, done by 12, photos until 1pm, everyone seated and eating at 1:30pm, or later - 2:30/3pm service, planning a main meal around 5/5:30pm with everyone having had good time to eat lunch before hand. You providing one sit down meal and then a buffet later on.

Another thought, if you are getting married in a hotel, will many of your guests be planning on staying in said hotel? Most have check in from 2pm - or if later can arrange an early check in of 2pm for wedding guests, a 3pm service means they can arrive, check in, unpack and be unflustered. An 11am or 12noon wedding means there's no way they'll be able to check in before the wedding, so will have to leave bags in the cars or in storage in the hotel somewhere and be trying to do their check in during your photos/mingling time, or alternatively, when pissed at midnight.

I got married at 2:30 so people ate before. I'm sure it's not hard to bring or pick up a sandwich en route.

We got married at 3, so everybody had ample chance to have lunch beforehand. We served canapés after the ceremony and then the wedding breakfast at 7. We only had a small wedding though ie no separate evening reception so this worked ok.

Slkk - agree, I don't understand the mentality of "It's a 2pm wedding, but takes 2 hours to drive there, want to build in an extra half hour incase of delays, so I'll leave at 11:30am and have to miss lunch!" can people really not either eat a sandwich on the way or even crazier, leave at 10:30am and have a bite to eat on the way/when they get there?

There are some adults who don't seem to cope at all with their routines being changed even the slightest.

We got married at twelve noon. I wouldn't have thought there would be a problem with what you are suggesting.

We had our ceremony at 2.30pm for this very reason. It meant people could have a late breakfast/light lunch before.

Had sit down dinner 5-7pm.

Cheese ploughmans style buffet and wedding cake at 9pm.

I find that guests can leave the evening party early when the day starts early, because its a long day and people get tired. And the long gaps can sometimes drag abit when you don't know many people/you're hungry/the drinks are expensive.

I got married at 3pm and we sat down for our meal at 5.30, as a member of the wedding party has fixed mealtimes due to illness.
I don't think that I ate anything all day anyway, but everyone was very much able to have lunch before they came to the ceremony.
Would a later start be better for you than an earlier one, which would necessitate a really long day for your guests. Do they really want to go to a 12 or 13 hour wedding?

In Australia, people get married at about 3 (so they can have lunch first) and then go to the dinner venue for about 6 for drinks (if there's a hiatus, people might go and have a quick drink at a pub) then have a sit down dinner, speeches then dancing.

Everyone eats at normal times, and no evening invites for people to get upset about.

I think weddings usually start around 2pm because that gives guests time to travel there and the bridal party time to get dressed without having to wake up at the crack of dawn (although many people still do have to).

Also if the wedding breakfast is around 4/5pm, then it means whoever´s paying for the wedding only has to lay on a light cold buffet in the evening (sandwiches, cake). If the wedding breakfast is at 1pm and guests are staying until midnight or later, they will get pretty hungry again in the evening. Some couples can´t afford to pay effectively for two meals per guest.

We got married at 11.00, photos taken outside, then lunch. After lunch we went to get our bags (and fell asleep) then off to our honeymoon hotel. Our wedding so we did it the way we wanted which was to have lunch at lunchtime, not tea time and no evening party.

You could do similar and have a party on another day.(I always escape the evening 'do' so lunch is ideal for me, and no hanging about).

We got married at 2, and had a DIY buffet tea at 4.30ish. Perfectly do-able.

We're getting married at one then heading to a restaurant for lunch/dinner. No waiting around, no horrid drunk people slopping their drinks everywhere (I don't drink) and home and in bed with the kids before dark! Nice and easy!

Me and DH got married around 3 and our meal was at about 430ish so that worked really well and no long gaps in between. Light evening buffet at the same venue around 8pm. I found the flow of the day didn't get tiring foe everyone, especially those with children.

I have been to weddings with rather long gaps in between photos and food of any description. ..one in particular that was held at a remote location so no options to get anything for yourself...that wasn't great. Obviously a wedding isn't all about feeding your face but I get a bit emotional when hungry, and I don't think I was alone

I assist my hubby who is a wedding photographer, the reason for the gap is that a: it allows for any over run (it doesn't happen often but one of our brides was 45mins late!) B: so that there is time to take photographs and get the important family group shots out of the way. Trust me these take time. These need to be before dinner because from experience key people tend to disappear after the meal.

If your ceremony and reception are at the same venue if you get married at 12 (ceremony take about 45mins, including the signing the register photos) then allow an hour to an hour and a half for photos you could easily request meal to be served at 2:30pm. Or get married at 1:30pm so people have time to have some lunch before hand and then serve your meal around 4pm so it's I time for dinner/tea. This helps reduce the dead period between day reception end and start of evening.

We got married at 4pm, so ate sandwiches at lunchtime and obviously guests had time to eat lunch before the wedding! No canapes and dinner was 5.30pm (photos were a bit rushed but we didn't want to spend ages on that).

If I go to an earlier wedding then I aim to eat a fry up mid morning to tide me through!

It's difficult to work out timings whatever time. The last wedding I went to was 1.30, we sat down to eat at 4, by the time we'd finished it was 7, then the evening buffet was at 8.30, hardly anyone ate, just the evening guests, and tons of food was wasted.

We got married at 11am (it was a popular date and the only time we could get at the registry office). We had photos outside the Victorian registry office, then drove 20mins back to the countryside and had photos and snacks with champagne at home (I bought sausage rolls and other bits and bobs from M&S for the snacks). Then we went to a local restaurant for a meal at 2.30, which perhaps finished at 4.30. A lot of my friends are horsey/farmers, so some went home to see to animals, the rest of us sat outside in the beer garden and had drinks/chilled. Then at 7 we had a big evening reception and ate again at 8.30. The downside of getting married early is you have to get hair done at the crack of dawn!

We got married at half 1 and had food at 3. We were told we could have whatever time we wanted but to allow about an hour between ceremony & food for photos.

We got married at 4pm because we didn't want to eat at an 'awkward' time either. We had dinner at 7pm and only had to feed people once, so saved money. We went straight from dinner to live band/dancing.

The timing did reduce any 'waiting around' and meant people didn't get bored/tired. Good luck!

Went to a brilliant wedding recently. Sit down lunch at 12.30. Wedding at 3.00 followed by champagne and canapés at 4.00. Hot buffet served at 7.00. Just fab.

We went against the norm as I always hated the waiting around at weddings we had been to. We invited everyone to the church and evening do, about 100 people in total. Ceremony at 4pm so everyone had, had breakfast and lunch before hand. We then headed to reception venue at about 5ish after photos etc. Had a drink, meet and greet. The usual ladedar! Then a buffet served at 6pm which kept on coming. Wedding, eat, party. I had lots of comments how it was such a great way to organise it and people copied my idea and did theirs the same way when they got married which I was pleased about. Your wedding your way.

We got married at 4pm, meal at 6, then evening buffet at 9:30.

Recently we went to a Wedding starting at 10:30, canapés were served at 4 no other food was served until 9:30pm.