Ceremony in church vs. at reception site

I think it really depends where you are but I am paying the same at my church as I would to get married at my reception site. However, there is no gap between our ceremony & reception. People will head straight to our reception site & the cocktail hour will start & the bridal party will go take pics.

For us, it was definitely more budget saavy to have the ceremony at the church. The cost to transform the reception room into a ceremony space (decor, lighting, altar etc.) was going to cost an arm and a leg. Not to mention having to leave and come back for pics just seemed werid to me.

I know it sounds like it should be less to have the ceremony somewhere else, but by the time you add up the money paid to the church and the transportation, it could be equal to or even more than what you would pay to have everything onsite.

For the (Catholic) church alone, our fees all add up to almost $1000. Add in the limo service from home to the church then to the reception, and we're talking $1800.

I agree with what Julia Beth said. Also, if you are using the church, you may need to decoration the church as well.

To have the ceremony at the venue was going to cost me an additional $600 (rental fee + rental fee for chairs) which would have completely blown my budget. Plus I wanted to get married in a church and I knew that I would regret my decision later on if we went with the venue.

It depends where your located in my area reception sites are often cheaper or about the same price as churches. I will definitely be getting married in church because I am catholic and they wont recognize the marriage outside of the church.

There's also nothing wrong with asking potential venues if they'd be willing to waive ceremony fees. Our venue did, since the $1000 fee put them out of our budget.

Everyone around here gets married on the beach so we knew we didn't want that. We did the church thing with the reception at a different location immediately following so when we entered, everyone was already there and drinking. It worked out fine.

I was raised catholic so family expected me to get married at a Catholic Church. My fiancé is Jewish and I wanted to be respectful of their family boundaries. I was willing to settle at a hotel for the ceremony but has to put these in consideration:

1. I want to wear heels and don't want wind to mess up my look at a beach wedding...plus way to costly and for some with wind, sun, grass factor...just a bit unpredictable.

2. I didn't want to have a long gap in between...our ceremony is at one but wanted to have a black tie reception..

Cost ended being the same but they are right...church needs less decoration, I also wanted to do something sacred and memorable..and as my sister pointed out..why even consider a hotel..I've always dreamed about getting married at a church..why settle now...gap or not..it's your day..do whatever you want and if you mean a lot to your guests..they will make the sacrifice..I've been a parishioner at this church and have been singing with the choir for many years..so it's extra meaningful..it's a brand new church..traditional and has a phenomenal music ministry....

In retrospect..it's good..we can then take pictures at the beach after ceremony and have time to change to something shimmeryfor the reception.

We aren't religious so a church was never considered, however, our venue had a gorgeous ceremony site on a pond with a little arch type thing. The ceremony fee was $500 and included chairs for our guests which was just fine with us. There wasn't any transformation needed because the reception was in the ballroom and the cocktail hour was on the patio.

I have heard that churches can be very expensive. But you dont need to have a gap if you use one, just start cocktail hour as soon as guests arrive at the venue. So if your ceremony should end at 430, and it takes 30 minutes to get to the reception venue, then they should be ready to start cocktails at 5 pm or as soon as the first guest arrives. That's not a gap and is fine.

We originally were going to do everything at my church because it has the chapel area and then a gymnasium. but we decided it would take way too much time, effort, and money to try to cover up the fact that it was a gym so we just went to a mansion and we are going to have an outdoor wedding and cocktail reception at the mansion. we ended up saving money I think because since the venue is so elegant we have minimal decor.

My venue has space for a weddign outdoors (they can adjust the ballroom if the weather is bad). they waive the ceremony rental/venue fee if the reception is on site. We also negotiated the chair rental fee down as i don't need high dollar chairs for a 20 minute ceremony.

Churches are actually more expensive than you would think. The churches FH and I looked at averaged around $700 not including transportation fees.

It never occured to me to not get married in a church (I was truely raised actually inside of the church - my dad is a priest).

Yes churches can be expensive, but others arent at all. It can be really variable.

For me (at least) having the wedding in a church mattered more than any amount of money

Being neither one of us is in a religion that affiliates with a church we knew it was not something we wanted. Our site has a separate ceremony site. Set up & breakdown included with the chairs is $750 & it's a short walk into the reception (less than 100ft)

I wanted my ceremony to be at my church but I don't want to ride an hour to get to my reception so were doing everything at the venue.

Thank you PL Mary for stating what I wanted to but so much better than I ever could

Ours is at the same location it's only $500 extra for the ceremony set up and tear down and it's a beautiful location in front of a fireplace so I'm just going to do some candles and an aisle runner for the ceremony itself