Critique my wedding?

[MustardMonster]

Inspired by other threads I've read recently - does this sound ok? There are some aspects I am worried about, especially as there's a lot of 'traditional' (in my mind, unnecessary ) parts missing.

Whole wedding is being held in two venues, a 2 minute walk from each other. In the beautiful village where we live. It is quite a touristy area of interest as it's a world heritage site. It has a train station (another minute walk from the venues), that has very quick connections to nearest cities. Local hotels are decent and cheap. All of our families and some friends live 1.5hrs drive in opposite directions so most people will be staying overnight.

Ceremony is in a gorgeous Victorian hall. Reception is in the social club round the corner. It's very 1960's retro but immaculately kept and we love it. The drinks are incredibly cheap (I hate going to weddings where the bar is extortionate!!).

The day will go like this:

2pm - 2.30/3pm: ceremony
3pm - welcome drink/toast at reception venue
3.30pm - buffet/drinks (we are having a local artisan bakery doing the buffet. It's very fancy and nice and there will be lots of food!)
We will probably go for some photos during this time but won't disappear for hours!
6pm - evening guests arrive
7/7.30ish - wood fired pizza (lots of different flavours - they basically dole out slices of pizza for 2 hours straight) and we will have brownies and wedding cake for pudding.

My DP is a DJ and some of our friends also are so we are doing our own music. It will be a mix of Motown, soul, funk, disco, 80's pop. Lots of stuff we know our families and friends love.

Does this sound ok? The bit I'm concerned about is the wait between the ceremony and evening party but my DM keeps telling me people will be happy to eat, drink and chat with background music on during this time. We don't really have to budget to put any 'entertainment' on during this time. We aren't having speeches or first dance etc. We basically wanted the ceremony and a big party afterwards.

If anyone has any suggestions they are welcome!

The only thing I can think of is tha asking guests to pay for their own drinks is poor form but otherwise it sounds like a really nice wedding. Especially love that the venues are all so close together.

Sounds perfect! So many weddings with all the favours / speeches / choreographed first dance / photobooth with large sunglasses nonsense. All deeply boring. I just want to eat loads, get a bit pissed and dance the night away!

I would say that unless the ceremony does end at 2.30, you may find that you need to shift the welcome drink and buffet back a little bit.

Just because in the immediate 'you got married!' moment, everyone will want a piece of you, a hug, a handshake etc.

So if it does end at 3, estimate that people won't get to the reception venue til 3.15/3.30. But you have plenty of time to play with.

If you can get things like giant jenga, photobooth props, or boules etc it could help out in the 4h between the ceremony ending and the next lot of food?

Where will people be during the gap, at the hall or the social club? I don’t think people mind a gap to chill out and have a few drinks as long as there’s a bar and somewhere to sit!

Sounds a lot like my wedding, and I loved it! Great idea to give guests an idea of timings up front- I know at our quite a few of the older generation went off together for a walk round the town (also a tourist area) between the wedding and reception.

Do you have any/many children coming? At a friend's wedding the bride's mother provided a 'present' for each child- just some cheap colouring pencils/paper/joke books etc. I wish I'd done the same as it kept all the kids amused whilst the adults were chatting and probably only cost about £10 in total.

Yes I'll actually be happy if the ceremony takes a bit longer because it means less of a gap until the evening party kicks off

We were going to do a post-ceremony drink at the hall as we actually have it hired for 3 hours but the drink prices are extortionate! So instead we are doing drinks at the social club (we are hopefully going to provide some different options for people rather than just the standard glass of fizz) and then the bar will be open from as soon as we get there too. And the buffet will be happening in the gap too. Plenty of seating, food and drink to go around.

Not many kids at all. I have a 5yo dd and then a couple of nephews and nieces (one of which is 11). My brother is great at making balloon animals so I might rope him in to doing that and then I'll get some other bits to entertain them!

Check the weather closer to the time. A 2 min walk in torrential rain is something else. If it looks bad maybe provide umbrellas?

I would check the timings for the ceremony. A civil wedding can be over in less than 20 minutes. You might want to think about music, readings and so on.

We served tea, coffee and bucks Fizz in the gap while we were having the photos and the bar was open too. People just mingled and played with some of the things we had left out like little games etc they don't take up much space but they were a good icebreaker, giant Jenga etc is a good idea.

It sounds like it's going to be an amazing day. People said to us that their favourite thing about our wedding was that it reflected our interests in every way and they knew it could only be our wedding - it wasn't a cookie cutter event. So basically do what makes you happy - you'll probably only do it once.

I wouldn't say its poor form for guests to pay for their own drinks,seems pretty standard to me.Have a lovely day sounds great!

I've never been to a wedding where I didn't have to pay for drinks! We will be providing a drink for after the ceremony, tea/coffee and soft drinks with the buffet and maybe put some money behind the bar for the evening if we can stretch to it (which I mentioned up thread). Not sure what else we could do without paying for the whole bar all day/night

Thanks again everyone

OP I've never been to a free bar wedding

I didn't put any money behind the bar. We had wine on the tables. I wouldn't expect free drinks at a wedding past the welcome drinks and maybe some wine IF it was a sit down meal.

The bar is incredibly cheap anyway so I think people will be happy. I've been to a few weddings in a middle-of-nowhere fancy hotel type place where you're a captive audience and the bar is double the price of what you'd normally pay. I didn't want people to have to spend a fortune on drinks etc.