Ceremony start time

What about cocktail hour?

Does your venue do like 6-7pm cocktail hour?

Then you can do a ceremony at 5:00pm.

I would say 5:30. The ceremony shouldn't take more than 30 minutes and that leaves time for folks to get to the reception venue and you guys to take some formal pictures at the church. Are you having a cocktail hour?

I would double check with your church to make sure they allow ceremonies that late, I know lots of brides here have said that they need to be done by a certain time because of Saturday evening liturgies. And your venue should do a cocktail hour like VC said!

Agree w/ VC.

Typically church ceremonies are 45 mins - an hour, so you could do ceremony 4:30 to 5:30ish, cocktail hour 6-7, dinner reception 7-11

Is it a simple short ceremony or something like a catholic mass that takes an hour? I would say 5 or 5:30 depending on ceremony length.

Apparently the cocktail hour is from 7-8, which is kind of late to me. I'm hoping the venue will let us add an hour to the beginning of the reception so it would be 6-11 with cocktail hour being 6-7. When I first asked they said they usually don't do it in case there is another wedding but I'm hoping there won't be another wedding.

It really depends on the ceremony length and if you are doing a first look or doing pictures between the ceremony and reception. We had a 2 hour gap between our ceremony and reception and it was fine. We had shuttle service from our hotel, which a lot of guests ended up not staying at, but they hung out at the hotel lounge and had a drink or two before taking the shuttle to the reception.

The hour between the ceremony and reception is usually the cocktail hour. Are you not having one?

ETA: Just saw your post. Hopefully they'll let you add the hour!

We will have a short ceremony so probably about 30 minutes. We aren't doing a first look but I plan on doing separate pictures before the ceremony.

Good news! The venue said we can start an hour early. Cocktail hour will be from 6-7. So does that mean ideally we would start the ceremony at 5? Or would it be better to have it at 4 or 4:30?

It depends on the length of your ceremony and don't forget, moving people around takes time too.

4:30-5:00 ceremony

5:00-5:45; guests get out of church, in cars and to reception hall

Cocktails at 6:00.

Thanks @Celia. I didn't even think of that. 4:30 seems like a good time then.