Best time for wedding ceremony

[Blackcatbride]

I keep reading that weddings later in the day are becoming more popular (less standing around, killing time etc). We would like to embrace this by having ceremony at registry office (approx 60-70 guests), then walk round the corner to reception venue with drinks and canapés, then a big hot and cold buffet, with no seated meal/seating plan etc and guests just mingling. We would still have speeches in some form but no cake cutting or first dance (our worst nightmare as introverts!). We would then bring out our cheese wedding cake with crackers, bread, grapes, chutney etc mid-evening in case anyone was still hungry. The registrar can offer us 4pm or 5pm. Has anyone done anything similar? Which ceremony time would work best, and what kind of schedule? Thanks!

Sounds great. We got married at 4pm- it means you can go straight onto drinks and dinner, no waiting around, no complications about evening guests etc. Think ours was something like-

4- ceremony
5- drinks and canapes
6.30- dinner
8.30- speeches, followed by dancing

It's also good if you have guests travelling a long way.

4pm is perfect if you are close to the reception venue/same site. 3pm works if there's more travelling. Church weddings take longer so 2pm works well

I think ours was at 3.30pm. It worked well and minimised the hanging around.

People have lunch before the wedding so no one is starving.

Your wedding plans sound great. A relaxed fun wedding would be lovely.

We did this, and both loved it! We got married at 5:30pm, had a couple of photos and then travelled to a restaurant where we had a drinks reception at 6:45pm and then a seated dinner at 7:30pm. The meal ended at 11:30pm though most people (we only had 24 guests) left at 12pm.

Congratulations on your engagement, and well done you for choosing something that will suit YOU and nobody else - I'm sure you'll have a fantastic time!

@gogohmm our ceremony is a 2 minute walk to the reception 😊.

@littlelilypad thank you, that's made my day! I'm sure some people will think it should be more traditional, but we really want to do 'us'.

I would love that as a guest, sounds fab.

All this post done is made me jealous I'm not coming. Sounds amazing OP

Just not midday! Been to two weddings like this and at one an usher fainted through hunger. Don't expect people to miss a meal!
We got married at 2:30pm.

We did exactly the same with about 30 guests. Ceremony at 4pm. Photos at 4.30/4.45. Walked 2 minutes to the restaurant for guests. Canapés at 5pm food around 6pm. We cut the cake at some point but there where no speeches or dances.