Wedding day timetable - comments please...

[VenetiaLanyon]

Church service 2pm - 2.45pm / 3ish. Few photos outside church.
Coach to take guests to reception 15 mins away
3.30ish guests arrive at venue for reception. Photos, plus drinks and savoury canapes served from 3.30pm. Children's entertainers from 3.30pm
6pm Children fed in separate dining room and then entertainment in evening creche
6pm Line up
6.30pm speeches
7.15pm wedding breakfast served
8.45pm cake cutting and coffee and cake served
9.15pm cocktails and first dance (DJ)
10.30pm evening food
All over at 1am.

In particular am worried that: 2pm is too early to start, and is drinks reception bit is too long before the breakfast; will people get bored /tired / twitchy? Would you shorten it by starting everything 30 mins later? Any other concerns?

T v much

See, we ate immediately after the service - we had our buffet lunch in the Church, so as soon as the service finished, they descended on it like locusts!
We had a 2:15 service, which finished at half 3ish.

I'd make sure you have loads of canapes (double what ever the caterer suggests) as it will be quite a while between people getting lunch and dinner, especially if they have travelled a long way. And with drinks sloshing around people could get rather tipsy. Are you sure that you will be able to peel the children off their parents in an unfamiliar place?

Thanks for all your comments, folks; really appreciate them.

Couple of things:

• Would people really be staving by 7.15 if they've been eating canapes all afternoon? At home we don't usually eat until 9.30pm, and that's after a 12am lunch and no snacks! We were wondering about serving the wedding cake in the afternoon too,so the kids can have some too.

• Caterers have suggested 7 canapes per person. Will also be pizza for children. Surely no-one will go hungry!

• Will definitely think through whether we do formal photos at the church; I am not massively interested in photos, as we are both pretty unphotogenic (although look stunning in real life ), but would like to make sure we get ones of the lovely guests

• Babes in arms will obv be in with the adults for meal, but most children will be school age and viewing parents as a bit of a drag. We're restricting numbers of children to approx 30, so not everyone will be bringing kids. I can bet that our DD (3) would much rather be having fun with big kids in the entertainment zone (possibly a Wii room, for example) having thrown off the parental shackles. We will let everyone know the score beforehand, so that parents can opt out of bringing their DC if necessary. Really want a fun bit with children in the day (when children and parents will mingle freely ), and then a relaxed adult affair in the evening.

• Really good idea to have food and wipes for the church (vows might make me a bit peckish...)

• OH is insistent that we are not getting married if he has to wait until after the meal to do the speeches....

• Could serve the wedding cake and chips at the same time, to soak up excess booze / revive flagging blood sugar levels....

So you get to the venue at 4pm and fed at 7.15pm? To me that is a very long time hanging around. What are they doing in those 3hrs?

yse, I would be starving if I had to wait till 7, especially if I had lunch before 12.
I can't believe you go from 12 to 9:30 without eating!
I would die
You should aim to eat every 4 hours, really.

the entertainment for the kids sounds cool, actually.

Your OH doesn't have to make a speech, you know.
Or you could do them while everyone's having the canapes - so it's less formal.
(we had ours in the church while everyone was eating the buffet, and still had a good audience - as long as you've got a sound system, people will come and listen)

(oh, and I had to laugh, sorry to be pedantic but 12am is midnight, which emans you go for 21 ½ hours without eating! sorry )

Have you asked the caterers about how long they think it will take to serve dinner? I think 90 mins is too short for 3 courses. It takes longer than you'd think. I'd allow 2 hrs and reduce the drinks reception in length.

I do think 90 minutes is long enough for drinks. It's fine for people who know loads of people, but for those who don't, it can get a bit boring.

agree

The other thing is if you, at any stage, need to move people en masse from one room to another, always allow 20mins. e.g. when you announce that dinner is served it will be 20 mins before the caterers can actually start service. That was the best tip I got from my wedding co-ordinator. If you need to clear the dining room, so that they can clear down the room for the evening, again, it'll be 20 mins before they can actually start.

Expect that the speeches will overrun and factor it in- that's the big downside with speeches before dinner- if they go over, dinner's getting cremated.

I know what you mean about wanting the children to be happy in the evening but I would not be happy leaving DS2 to eat without us.

At our wedding the children could go into the play area during the drinks reception then joined the adults for the meal they were then free to go and play again during speeches, cake cutting, evening reception (although lots of them wanted to be on the dance floor!)

I do not see the wedding breakfast as the evening part, to me thats afternoon and the disco etc is the evening. I would also be drunk/starving not eating until 7:30pm as we would not have eaten much since breakfast given the time it takes to get everyone ready, get to church etc!

One more thing (yeah I know)- I actually didn't have any formal photos at all- they were all shot reportage style throughout the day. It does mean that the day can proceed more smoothly and guests don't have to hang around waiting for endless formal shots.

However, you need to really trust your photographer because you don't want to get them back and find out that there aren't any of (eg) your parents together

Well most people won't have managed to fit a decent lunch in before 2 especially if travelling. Pregnant people, old people, folks who get low blood sugar and kids will all struggle. Others will get drunk and trough the canapes. Other people will just grumble about it afterwards. You don't want people's enduring memory of your wedding to be feeling ravenous and frankly rather bored whilst waiting for all the faffing with photos to be done.

Speeches are the BEST bit of most weddings, even if they are brief. IT's when you really feel the LOVE. I want to enjoy them. I'd serve wedding breakfast - which will effectively be everyone's lunch - at 5 or so.

I think you should make your plans re kids really explicit. Depending on the set up (are you indoors?) I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect there not to be a while load of intermingling and toing and froing even if the kids are mainly 8+

I would truly be a lot better suited for fitting into a bizarre white frock if I practised the no eating for 21.5 hour plan as above....

I can't believe that you'd be starving if you spent the afternoon eating 7 canapes! We're talking big canapes! Alternative option is an afternoon tea instead i.e. small sarnies and scones. Would that slake your eternal hunger better?

Good tip on room movement - seems like the majority of the day is going to be moving people about...

Caterers have said 2 hours if include coffee, and 1.5 hours if coffee is served separately (as we currently have above).

I think you have the "breakfast" and the evening food too close together.

We had a 3pm wedding with the wedding breakfast at 6pm . The service finished at 4:15 and the photos at church and finsihed off at hotel while drinks reception going on took until 6pm.

you're still going to have to move your dinner forward by 1.5 hours.

Have it at 6pm.

People will thank you for it.
:)

I dont necessarily think you'd be starving (if canape's were, for example, mini yorkshires and roast beef, chunky blinis) but I do think the drinks reception is too long as it stands and people will get very pissed and be feeling a bit jaded by dinner.

Was going to add, I don't really think you need the evening food- maybe just do a cheeseboard?

Re the kids, I think your idea is really nice but I fear some people will say "fine" to your proposal and then when it comes to it, you'll have some children running in and out of the meal, even if they're not eating. If you just accept that's going to happen, then great. If not, you may have to do the CFW

MerylStrop, I was thinking that the canapes at 4pm would be substantial food which would make up for people having an early lunch? Stuff like mini-pizzas, chicken skewers etc. Hmm, maybe we start 30 minutes later to give people more of a chance to have lunch before they arrive? (And perhaps the elderly and infirm could ruthlessly nibble on the children's church snack bars...). I was thinking that we'd need plenty of time to digest the canapes / afternoon tea before getting down to the main breakfast bit at 7.15pm.

2Gorgeousboys, I've been to a couple of lovely weddings where the meal was in the evening rather than late pm, as there was drinks and entertainment in the pm, and was hoping to go down that route. Love kids, but not on the dancefloor at weddings... DD went into a wedding creche aged 2 very happily, and had an absolute blast (we sneaked in to check up on her a couple of times) All non-babes in arms there would know at least 3 other kids, and often a few more, and will make sure that parents know the score so that they can leave the kids at home if they're not keen on the idea of an evening creche. But I suspect that everyone we're asking to bring kids will be ok with this (and actually prefer it..)

But what are people doing between 4pm and 7.15pm?

Mingling? Ok if you know lots of people but otherwise it's he'll of a long time to hang around. I'd be utterly bored. You tend to get chatting to those on the table when eating.

plus, if you didn't have the canapes, you would save loads of money.
Have a half hour welcome drink when they arrive at the recpetion, ready to sit down and eat.

then you've got a nice big gap for the food to go down before you bring out the evening food.

I did go to a wedding that had canapes, late dinner and then evening food, and noone ate the evening food because it was too late, and too soon after dinner.
They did, however, end up eating more than 7 canapes each, and a lot of people got stupidly drunk before dinner started (mid afternoon, very sunny, warm day, so people drank more than they would normally too)

and people wouldn't think to eat a later lunch.

honestly, you would be better not to have the canapes and have an earlier Breakfast.

honestly <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=3.bp.blogspot.com/_VCtSWsdbeJs/TBZa0odcpnI/AAAAAAAAAQI/a0T7r6Yyz_Y/s1600/mlf-skeleton-pd-05-kj0022.jpg&imgrefurl=drugstoreskateboarding.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html&usg=__Bz1DSQt4UHfndBrcuy_aDyQbOoY=&h=1170&w=734&sz=309&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=qJrMLryHH6_GnM:&tbnh=152&tbnw=98&ei=PQKfTaeNKYng4gaaoLWHAw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dskeleton%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D810%26tbs%3Disz:l%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=239&oei=PQKfTaeNKYng4gaaoLWHAw&page=1&ndsp=31&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0&tx=45&ty=80" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> this would be me if I had to wait till 7:15 to sit down and eat.
(people don't like hanging around either)

I have decided I am greedy. From church service starting at 2 and not sitting down to eat until after 7pm... I'd would feel like I was waiting impatiently for hours.

Careful none of your guests live too near their homes from the venue cos they might go home for a coffee and sit on their settee for a couple of hours. It's been known...

I have to agree with others - I would be horrified (and starving and drunk) if I didn't eat til that late at a wedding. Canapés are supposed to be little nibbles, so how about giving people a proper snack (hot sandwiches - hog roast if money is no object) mid afternoon, then a late wedding breakfast ( then no evening meal needed); or canapés, bring the wedding breakfast forward a good couple of hours and then have a light evening meal around 9 ish.

I would find it quite dull to hang around for hours and hours between service and meal (sorry!).

Ok, comments all digested gratefully, and new line up as follows:

Church service 2.30pm - 3.15pmish. Guests are grumpy and starving from the word go. Rush round feverishly offering raisins, fresh fruit and wipes to all, but especially the young, old, infirm and those I suspect of pregnancy. NB possible banana pew ends instead of flowers?

Few photos but realise that can't do formal photos here as no alcohol and grub for grumpy= starving and bored guests; clearly need alcohol to anaethestise monotony of photos / wedding day generally.

4pm Herd reluctant guests firmly in direction of coach. Chastise dawdlers soundly. Continue to supply raisins to elderly, even when they don't want them.

4.15pm Coach leaves to take guests to reception 15 mins away. Raisin applications continue.

4.30pmish Guests arrive at venue and are prised off comfortable coach seats for unconfortable stand-up drinks reception. Formal photos of increasingly irritated guests and somewhat strained looking "happy couple", plus drinks and frankly enormous canapes served from 4.30pm. Being served by waiters so that the particularly hungry are not able to over-scoff... Music and children's entertainers from 4.30pm.

6.00pm Children fed in separate dining room whilst parents are in line-up and then go on to children's entertainment in evening creche. Venue issue here is that children can't be fed before 6pm. General hoohaa ensues as a result of children and parents torn assunder by unfeeling wedding planning.

6pm Line up for adults - more opportunities for out-and-out tedium. Guests' vitriol now takes on an alcohol-tinged edge.
6.30pm Speeches and champagne. Hecklers to be removed and placed in separate room with children as the "entertainment".
7.15pm Wedding breakfast served. Guests too starving, drunk or bloated to enjoy. The cries of unhappy, lonely children are heard in the distance.
8.45pm Coffee served whilst cake is cut. Children's cries grow more plaintive at the realisation that the cake is not for them.
9.15pm cocktails and first dance (DJ). Guests now much too drunk and full to join in. Unless they are illicit children, who have broken the embargo. Bride and groom left high and dry on 80s-style dance floor with everyone's offspring enjoying a frenetic, over-tired sugar high to the specifically-vetoed strains of "Heigh-Ho Silver".
11pm evening food - cake and chips. No-one eats, as everyone is either too full or has left in high dudgeon at badly thought out wedding timetable / matrimonial organisation generally, and the clearly-intended slights to themselves and their loved ones.

All over at 1am. NB b and g make mental note that vows will not be renewed.

Sorted, then...