Afternoon Wedding - How would it work

We are having an afternoon wedding..

Our ceremony is at 11am and we are having the ceremony at the same venue as our reception. So, for us, the reception is immediately following the ceremony

we are having a brunch buffet, with both breakfast and lunch items, then dancing and then a dessert bar....our reception also needs to end @ 4pm.

Our wedding is in the suburbs of chicago, so after the wedding reception my out of towners are all actually going str8 to the airport for flights home, and me and my new husband are going to spend the night downtown!

we are not going on our "honeymoon" until april, so that night we are just going to enjoy one another, hopefully talk about how wonderful the day is and perhaps do a wonderful dinner with either friends, parents, siblings or just alone.....we are actually going to play it by ear.....

if you decide on an afternoon wedding, you have the entire evening to enjoy the day that was hopefully so wonderful. Alone or with friends and family....

You do the same stuff- except you get to the hotel earlier... You get more time for the private wedding night festivities!

My wedding started at 11:30 and the reception was 12-4 and we had to be out by 4! It worked fine. The out of towners went downtown to party or other places and we took DH's family who was from out of town back to where they were staying and gathered up our stuff, then headed to our hotel for the night. The next day we had a bbq at the vacation rental house DH's family was in. It was a blast!

We are also having an afternoon wedding

Ceremony at noonish and then reception from 1pm-5pm, we are having heavy appetizers and sandwich type stuff as well as meatballs and some light dinner stuff since it's kind of in between meal times. And we plan on going to the hotel and ordering some room service and then proceed with the wedding night!

We're having a morning/afternoon wedding (ceremony @10:30 am and reception from 11am to 3pm...we need to start wrapping things up by 2:30 though so it's a qucik wedding). We're not leaving for our honeymoon until a day or two later. I want to do a second informal reception/bbq afterwards...with fun music, lawn games, maybe some beer pong (for the younger guests). Only problem is that my parents' place (which is on 17 acres) is an hour away. I know my family and some friends will be more than willing to make the trip, but it probably won't be nearly as many people there as the wedding. But that's fine with me lol

It's your wedding day, so do what you want to do.

We are having a morning DW with a group lunch after. After lunch we will go to our honeymoon villa and our guests will continue their "vacation". It's the same as any other wedding, just shorter, like Meghan said.

We are doing the same thing this coming Sunday, so I will let you know next week how it works. The way we have our day scheduled is our ceremony is at 11:00am on the beach. Then we are doing a brunch/lunch reception at a private home we rented. We also thave to be out by 4pm. Most of my guests are from up north so they have to catch a flight back home. Some of them are planning an afternoon on the beach. Others have planned to do things in Tampa/St. Pete area where our wedding is being held.

It is really not up to you to plan activities for them after the wedding. What you could do is find some things that will be open for them to do and include it on a little info sheet and they can make the choice themselves. Best of luck!

Our ceremony is scheduled for 1230-1pm then cocktail hour from 1-2 (while we do pics, then 2-5 we have the reception...afterwards we are going to a hotel down the streets and continuing the party at their bar. We have spread the word to most of our family memeber that we will be continuing the party there so they all plan on getting rooms even though they are not from OOT

I went to a wedding and the ceremony was at 12 pm, after that they gave us appetizers and drinks until the bride and groom arrived to the reception. It was really fun! We started eating the heavy meal at around 4-5 pm and the party went on til about 10 or 11 pm!

I'm also having an afternoon wedding 11am -5pm on a Sunday. Since my wedding is local I thought that it worked out fine since all my local folks will have time to rest and get ready for the Monday worday. I have alot of guest coming in from out of town so we plan to have an "after pary" at the hotel since there is a bar on site.

I am also having a Saturday afternoon wedding. The ceremony will start at 11am and we have the venue until 4. Immediately after the ceremony, we will go into the cocktail hour (while we take pictures) and then we will start the reception. We are having a lunch buffet, which is basically almost the same as the dinner buffet but it is cheaper and lighter portioned. No one wants to eat that heavy in the middle of the day, and during cocktail hour we are also having passed o'rdeuves. I am actually excited about it because our guests won't have to spend all day at our wedding and we can party later on that night after everyone has rested...but we will play that part by ear. We won't leave for the honeymoon until that Monday.