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?

I'm getting married next yr. We have 2 dcs so we're actually splitting things over 2 weekends.
First getting married at 2pm followed by meal in a very nice restaurant for about 20 family and close friends.
Following weekend, a party from 6pm for lots of frurnds with a buffet at 7 and disco. Much nicer and less cramming in, plus excited dd gets to wear her dress twice(my 2nd marriage so I'm relaxed)

We got married at 5pm then straight into dinner at 6:15pm followed straight away by dancing and drinking and a cheese and biscuit/bread table to snack on put out about 9pm. I have had a lot of people over the last 6 years say how much they liked the timings as there was no hanging about at all. I had a great day leisurely getting ready so worked well for me.

We got married at 11, champagne at 13:00, food at 13:30 until about 3.. Then a nice relaxed afternoon until big bbq reception from 5 onwards, it was lovely.

We got married at 4pm with drinks at 5pm and dinner at 7pm. Worked brilliantly. I also do not love the noon wedding and then hours of hanging round starving for photographs.

Have your wedding ceremony a 15.00. Everyone eats lunch on the way, or has a sandwich in the car. Simples.

Oh yea, ceremony at 4 or 5 even better!

We got married at 4, had substantial canapés after the ceremony and photos, then had the evening buffet (catering for everyone) at about 8pm. It meant we didn't have the expense or formality of a sit down meal, which suited us perfectly.

Ceremony at 3.30pm, canapés and photos then meal at 6pm.
Please had lots of time to travel down and eat before they left or when they arrived. Plus I didn't want to be up at 6am and rushing in the morning.

We got married at 3pm. People could have lunch at normal time, wedding at 3 then photos - we didn't have many, then meal at normal tea time then buffet of bacon and sausage butties later on.

We had a small wedding though.

I think it's becoming the norm to have later weddings nowadays so there isn't so much waiting around. We got married at 3pm, had photos and ate at 4.30pm. Evening do started at 7pm with buffet/disco etc. Also we got married in the same place so people didn't have to trek from a church to the reception, again another faff.
I'm sure most grown adults csn last a few hours without food and obv if you have kids you'd bring food to keep them going. Personally I was too happy/excited/nervous/scared of not fitting into dress to eat anyway and waited until we got to the hotel when it was all over.....and promptly wolfed down a pack of peanuts!

I understand your problem but what are your guests going to do from about 3.30 until 7.30 ish? They might disappear or get blind drunk. My deal would be a 3pm wedding, wedding breakfast about 5.30 leading into the evening festivities !

We had our wedding in a church that is more of a venue than a church (Charles Rennie Mackintosh church, if that means anything to you...) Ceremony started at 3pm, not sure when it finished, but probably about 45 mins later. Canapés and champagne at the back of the church while we did the photos, so people could be called forward for a pic between nibbles. Food in the adjacent hall thereafter, music and dancing till 7pm. We decided against an evening reception partly via we already had DS and partly cos I do like a wine, but hugely did not want to be a drunken bride

YANBU - I don't know why people want to starve their guests!!

Basically your model is fine but if there is an evening do, there needs to be evening food

A wedding that puts many guests in the position of having to eat a sandwich on a train is not very guest centric in my humble opinion. taking hours over photos and receiving line also means guests are really bored.

I got married at 1.30 (registry office in middle of town, so quick early lunch not a problem), canapés with champagne during photos, meal at 5, buffet at 10. Independent caterer, non-hotel venue.

I agree hooey to that crap, My wedding , we had hors d'oeuvres served at 11.30 AM, the service was at 12 PM and Lunch was served at 1 PM. I was too nervous to eat breakfast and the canapes were served before I arrived, I was hungry & I knew everyone else would be hungry. Feeding everyone early also made sure that no one got a skin full on an empty stomach, ergo, no arguments & no drunken fights later on.

I do not get to enjoy the wine at an early do, generally can manage to regulate my own food consumption so never a problem. I never enjoy drinking before 4 in fear of the crash and burn.

I think it's worth looking at the royal wedding set up if you want a traditional morning wedding as they favour - 1030ish wedding, back to palace for photos and canapés and drinks, then a full meal wedding breakfast at lunchtime. However, after that, guests leave, go back to houses in London/hotels, get changed, entertain themselves for a bit, then back for the evening reception (in new outfits), have another full meal, then I believe Prince Harry's only contribution to practical stuff was arranging an ice cream van and chippy van for later on in the evening - effectively if you follow their timings, you are doing 2 full meals, canapés and lighter buffet or in their case chippy food later. Plus they didn't have people waiting around as they left for a few hours, you'd have to entertain in that time.

The afternoon wedding preference is because most guests won't be able to just go home for a few hours and frankly away from the riches people, it's no longer normal to go and come back - the day and evening receptions aren't seen as separate events anymore.

If you have late afternoon, guests can eat lunch at home before travelling, assuming you've picked a venue that's within 2 hours of the bulk of your guests. (If you haven't, then a morning wedding will mean many feel thy have to pay for hotels for 2 nights rather than one).

we did it the same as you.

wedding at 12, dinner at 1.30, buffet served at 7pm! there were nibbles available between 3-5 but just snacky things like nuts...etc

I've never understood why people complain about the waiting around. Surely you sit and chat to people as you would had you chosen to go to the pub together?

Have a later ceremony?

My son got married last month. Drinks with him in the pub at 11, ceremony across the road at 12, photographs (about half an hour), guests bussed to meal venue consuming sparkling wine en route, meal about 2 pm, bride and groom left at 5.30, other guests could stay till about 7. We did this and had bread and cheese in our hotel room later. Party the next day, from 2 pm into the evening, finished by midnight. Perfect. Everyone relaxed, everyone fed, nobody (very) drunk, everyone happy. And I can recommend being mother of the groom - all you have to do is turn up with a nice frock on.

If you feed people at 2pm and want them to stay till 10pm or later, you will need to offer substantial food again at some time in the evening. That will cost a fair bit. Also the extra hours of time to fill issue.

Agree with all the suggestions of ceremony at 3 or 4pm. We had a 3pm ceremony, canapés at 4.30, dinner at 7, dancing at 9.30. Plenty of time before 3pm for people to get there, have early ish lunch and then change and get to the church. (Most people weren't travelling far, if they were we might have gone for 4pm instead). I went to a couple of weddings with an earlier ceremony, tbh the day seemed to go on a bit long. There's only so much standing around and chatting I can do.

Our church blessing was at 3pm. People ate lunch beforehand. Food was then served in the evening around 7-8 iirr