Arrival time vs ceremony time

Good luck counting on people to be adults.

I plan to set mines 30 min early

I'm with Celia on this one. FH's family is late for everything. His family is huge, with a lot of kids, so even if they had the best intentions to be on time, they will still be late.

To my knowledge most invitations I have received have put the start time. Usually the processional might be 5 minutes late starting.

For my ceremony I have to put the start time. The chapel I am getting married as it very strict with times, there is a wedding before mine and a university even after my ceremony.

We put the ceremony time. Most of the family will be there prior to anyway because we're taking photos beforehand.

Maybe this is unique to my venue, but in our contract they have it worded pretty strongly that guests are to arrive no earlier than a half hour before the ceremony start time. For myself, I always plan to arrive 15-20 minutes early to formal events like weddings, and I assume others do the same. So if I put an earlier time on the invitations, that would mean guests would be arriving 45-50 minutes before start time, which would piss off my venue.

We put a half hour early on ours . Ceremony starts at 6 we pit 530. Allows people to be on time and if late it's ok

@Celia, your post actually helped clarify some things for me lol

Getting married at the Skylands Manor in Ringwood, NJ and I decided to look over our contract again, (wedding is next year so it's been a while since I look it over) and realized they have Ceremony time "5pm-6pm), then Cocktail hour 6-7, and Reception 7-11pm.

I was like.... we don't need an hour for ceremony???? But! They do provide drinks and all that while guests are arriving. Plus our wedding is on a Friday, so NOW I understand that 5-530 is the buffer time.

And I will definitely keep it that way. My family is late to everythingggggg plus Skylands is a tad confusing to find.

We put our actual start time. Reason is FH went to a wedding that had a set start time of let's say 11am. I had a viewing an hour away that started at 1030. FH got to venue along with everyone else only to see sign stating start time was 1145. Everyone was left standing in the foyer. I went to viewing, drove hour and still was standing for about 15 minutes before we were seated for ceremony.

As someone who always shows up to weddings early, I think it's rude to punish your well-mannered guests because some people can't get their shit together and get places on time. Yes, traffic happens. So what? The world will not fall apart at the seams because a few of your guests didn't watch you walking down the aisle. This is especially true for a weekday wedding when people like me will likely take time off work to get home to shower/change and get to the venue on time. If I did all that just to sit around for an hour because you want to be overly accommodating to guests who run late, I'd be pissed.

We put the ceremony start time. People need to be adults, allow for traffic, etc, and be on time. If they can't do that then poop on them, and they're going to miss part (or all) of the ceremony. Their problem, not mine. I personally think it's rude to leave guests who had the courtesy to arrive on time hanging (not to mention pissing them off) so you can wait from late comers.

Thank you everyone. All your advise has been very helpful.