"Cocktail hour" prior to the ceremony?

Our cocktail hour is between our ceremony and reception. It will give us time for pictures and allow the guests to mingle.

We had the bar open before the ceremony for about 30 minutes. It wasn't a full cocktail hour. I just wanted any of the early guests to be able to get a drink and mingle before the ceremony. Your dinner time is pretty late. Why not just move the ceremony time up and do cocktail hour after?

We went to a wedding that had cocktail hour before the reception, and not only did people not want to sit down for the ceremony, but a lot of guests were pretty drunk before the ceremony even started - on the other hand, they did self-service alcohol and a number of other things (self-catering, not enough seats for everyone, etc.) that are problematic, so I'm not sure that it's the best example.

If you think your crowd will be responsible and willing to sit when the time comes for the ceremony, then go for it. Otherwise, maybe push the ceremony forward and go with a traditional cocktail hour between ceremony and reception.

We aren't moving the ceremony up. We're 38 days out. Invites have been sent out and we chose the time intentionally because we want a candle light ceremony. The wedding will need to be later in the evening to make that work, due to daylight savings time. All of the arrangements are made for that as our wedding is next month.

Our choices now are to open the bar and serve apps or just leave it be.

I'm happy to hear that some have had good experiences with this before.

@Becky We don't have a lot of heavy drinkers in our crowd, most probably will only have a drink or 2 for the evening. So I'm not concerned with them getting drunk before the ceremony.

The best wedding I went to did this and I thought it was great. I say go for it. Guests brought their drinks with them into the ceremony and it was fine.

Cocktail hour is included with our venue, so they said they will build the timeline and make sure everyone is where they need to be. It's not a terrible idea to have it before. I think it's just a preference and what works in your situation.

I've been to a wedding that had this and it was great!! We had a couple of drinks before the ceremony and the bride and groom greeted us as we arrived. It was really a fun change and spaced out the drinking and food.

It's a very common Jewish thing to do.

I guess I should add that I'm really not looking to add a formal cocktail hour, just open the bar early and offer some snacks so people will have something to do if/when they arrive early.

We did this. We loved it and heard that lots of guests enjoyed it as well. It was a traditional cocktail hour and we were there so a little different than your situation. We had no problems with rowdy guests during the ceremony, our coordinator helped let everyone know we'd be starting the ceremony and people enjoyed being able to arrive and mingle, get a drink and some food before having to sit and be quiet.

Thank you @SDC. I think we will do it and see how it goes.

We served champagne for our ceremony- we had a bar set up with champagne and guests could get a glass as they want to the ceremony site.

We're doing what @Celia described, we will have finger foods as well. After the ceremony we will have full cocktail hour

Idk I'm planning to have my cocktail hour after the ceremony.

A "cocktail hour" before the ceremony is usually called a "hospitality hour" and people usually also have a cocktail hour after the ceremony even if they do this. I don't think it's ideal bc guests will probably be expecting a cocktail hour too, but it def can be done!