Ceremony Time

The purpose of the cocktail hour is to give guests something to do while the bridal party takes pictures. If you have the choice of ceremony time, I would make the ceremony end at 3pm or 3:15pm, which would allow time to leave and get to the reception venue for the 4pm cocktail hour.

I feel like 3:00 would be good? I think you want a little more time than you need but not too much time.

3 is probably the best option, then the guests can move right into cocktail hour.

Your "gap" should be no longer than the trip from the ceremony venue and the reception should be hosted when guests arrive. A 3 pm ceremony time should work fine as long as you are hosting your guests in some way when they are allowed in.

Unpopular opinion but there is no etiquette that condones a gap longer than driving time between the ceremony and reception venues. Also, there is no hard and fast rule that all Catholic weddings have multi-hour gaps along with the idea that no reception venue anywhere lets you in before 5-6pm. As an example, our families are largely Catholic and none of us have ever been to a gap longer than 15-30 minute driving time and receptions were held in venues that allowed anyone to enter well before 5pm, or noon if they wanted.


As long as guests are served a cocktail hour, with alcohol served in moderation so that no one gets drunk, then you are fine. They are being hosted (are parents attending the full cocktail hour if you are unable?) and you still get the post-ceremony pictures before heading to the cocktail hour. Ask your photographer to knock out as many pictures as they can before the ceremony so that you only need a handful before going to the reception to join your guests. Do everything you can to get to the cocktail hour and spend time with guests. You can even greet them at that time if you opt out of a receiving line at the church because it ensures that you get to say hi to each guest and table visits take 3-5 times as long as people anticipate and it cuts into other activities and dancing, especially if the venue has a strict schedule you are required to follow.

So I'm having a Catholic wedding as well. The r ceremony is at 2 or we have access to decorate the venue the day before and make sure everything is set up. So not everyone is uninvited to the ceremony only my family and 2 close friends. We will back to the venue right after so I'm guessing 3:30-4:00 and reception/dinner time starts at 5:45 pm we planned it like that to have pictures out of the way before guests and the food arrives

Hopefully you got what I was trying to say lol, it autocorrected a lot! Meant to say not all guests are going to the wedding ceremony at the church they will go to the reception afterwards. We spaced the reception from the ceremony to have time for photos.

I would say 3:00 sounds like the better option, unless you know that the officiant gives long homilies. That can very quickly extend a 30 minute ceremony to 45+ minutes. The only other reason for bumping up the ceremony to 2:30 would be if you need to take a large family photo at the church, as that can add significant time and if many guests are involved that wouldn't make it to cocktail hour until after that, it might be better to have more of a buffer.

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Thanks Hannah!

We do have the flexibility to decide on ceremony time. I just didn't want too much gap time in between the ceremony and reception because it's only a few minutes drive. We're doing the photography beforehand, and just going to get a couple of pictures in the church after the ceremony and head over to the reception.

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Thanks Keri! I think you're right.

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Thanks Jacks, that was my line of thought too.

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I was thinking the same thing Michelle. I hate the gaps, that's why I'm trying to avoid one. The venue will allow us in 20 minutes before our reception time of 4:00, so I guests won't have to find something to do if our ceremony goes for 30-40 minutes.

My parents will be with us doing a few pictures in the church, but I didn't think of that, so I could probably have some of the bridal party head back to the venue right after the ceremony to welcome the guests and we have a friend that is doing acoustic guitar for the cocktail hour, so she'll already be playing as well.

Good point on the photography, we want to get the majority of pictures done beforehand any way and cut the receiving line. Fortunately, we're not on a super tight timeline so that definitely works to our advantage. Thanks for your feedback!

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Thanks Stephanie!

Are you guys doing a full mass or just a ceremony? We opted out of the full mass because neither of us are super religious, but we're doing it for my mom/grandparents who really wanted us to do the church. We lucked out and my uncle is a priest who is doing the ceremony, so he's flexible with what we're changing and our venue has been super accommodating with time frames.

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Thank goodness, my uncle performing the ceremony is not super long winded, so the homily should be reasonable. You're absolutely right that it can add a lot of time. We don't have large families, so the picture should just be a couple of group shots, bridal shots, and then we can take the trolley back to the reception spot.

Thanks for the advice!

View Quoted Comment That's great! My grandfather was a priest before he resigned from it to marry my grandmother. I actually wanted the church wedding. I think it gives off a different feel from an officiant.