30 guest Reception Timeline

Definitely do a cake cutting and serve some awesome desserts to keep people around! Older people may follow the etiquette that it's polite to leave after the cake is cut, so you can time it to keep them around till then. I'm also not sure how old you mean by "older," but after the string quartet leaves, you could still put on a playlist (maybe oldies like Motown or disco classics). I went to a wedding of 32 people, mostly the bride's relatives, and a few did dance.

How much older are your guests? Would they be of the age to take a nap in between, or rather prefer to start the party earlier. If the latter, I'd rearrange the timeline.

2-3pm Church ceremony,

3-4? Church pics. Guests travel and park at leisure, mingle.

4-5pm Quartet concert. Guests can roll in when ready, get served drinks before they sit.

5-530pm Cocktail half hour food served, mingle. Doesn't need to be long with 30ppl. You finish the rest of your pictures.

5:30 pm Dinner. Speeches, Toasts. Cake cutting.

9pm Reception ends. Any afterparties to follow.

As someone else mentioned, cutting the cake is often seen as the last official event. So the later you do that, the longer people following traditional etiquette are likely to stick around. I personally like to have time for my stomach to settle before diving into dessert right away anyway. And 10 isn’t so late that it should be that difficult to last the whole night. So if you’re starting dinner around 7, if dinner service lasts 60-90 minutes, hold off an extra 30 minutes to cut the cake. And just have light music playing in the background so if anyone does want to dance a little, they can. Otherwise if it’s a small group and people know each other, people love to just hang out and talk.

Our nuptial mass lasts an hour and a half (Traditional Latin Mass) and our venue is not available until 5 PM. That's why we have that time gap which we'll try to fill with church pics, guests travel and such. We'll definitely save the cake for last like you've recommended.

Thanks ladies!!! It's so good to not feel alone and read your comments.