False/earlier Ceremony start time on invitation?

Please don’t do this. If you need to communicate to people to be there early, spread the information by word of mouth but put the correct time on the invites.


Earlier start times are never polite but that doesn’t stop some people from doing what they want anyway. Just because something may be popular doesn’t make it a correct thing to do.

I think a 15 min buffer would be totally acceptable & honestly I would never think it was a false start if I had to wait 15 mins.. I would just think they were running a little behind getting ready, which I’d totally understand. Anything longer than 15 min & I’d be worried the bride or groom changed their mind about the whole thing 🤣🤣

Put the time that you intend the ceremony to start. On your website or info sheet you can absolutely recommend that people leave 15 mins to park etc (although most people are gong to do that anyway). If you put 6.30 on the invitation, you will have guests who arrive for 6 and will not be happy to have been sitting around for an hour by the time you walk down the aisle.

This can be a know your crowd kind of thing. I’m also from Tx and have some friends who started exactly on time to the minute, and others where we arrived at the invitation time and the parents of the groom commented how early we were! Different cultures interpret timing differently. Personally, I feel ceremonies usually start at least a few minutes behind the invitation time, so a 15min buffer would be fine. Might be good if there is somewhere guests can stay cool if they arrive early though!

Definitely put the actual start especially for a Friday wedding since guests might still have work. My husband and I went to a wedding where the couple told us the ceremony started at 4, but it actually started at 4:30. We arrived at about 3:30 in iedee to have time to park and get to our seats. It was so hot and held in a barn with only two ceiling fans so guests were miserable. Everyone was looking around expecting the wedding to start and becoming very annoyed when it didn't. This is was on a Saturday so I can only imagine how annoyed people would have been if it was a Friday and they left work early or raced after work to get around to be to the wedding on time. I know I was annoyed with being lied to because of how hot and inconsiderate I found it.

On our invitations I am putting the start time of the prelude music. Our church stays locked and will continue to be locked for security reasons. We will have people Manning the doors. On our website I included more detailed information. Our guests have to be in by 5:45-5:50 for our 6 pm ceremony because that is when the ushers will no longer be standing at the door and they will come in to help everyone get settled and take their seats themselves. I cant have my ushers at the door until 6 and we will be starting right on time. So if people are late they probably won't get let in until after the ceremony.

Check your venue contract. Mine says the start time on the invitations must be the actual start time.

Put your real start time. Do people really need to be told to arrive a few minutes early? I would hope most adults know that a 7:00 start time means you are in your seat a little before 7. There will always be those few people who are always late no matter what. But I think the majority of people get to these things a few minutes early.

I would put 15 minutes or just plan on starting 15 min late.

As a guest I’m always super annoyed when I get there early and then the wedding doesn’t start for another 30-45 minutes. Put the time it actually starts. People know to get there on time. If there are chronically late people attending let them know you will not be waiting.

Unless you plan to have things going on to amuse/occupy guests pre-ceremony, like having the bar already open to serve to them, don't do this.

Here's the thing: while this tactic protects you from latecomers, it is super discourteous to your guests who are punctual.

If your ceremony is at 7, and you put 7 on the invites, most of your guests have more than two brain cells and they will not show up at 7 on the nose. They will show up 10-15 minutes early.

Now let's say you put 6:45, for the latecomers. That means your punctual guests are now showing up at 6:30, a full half-hour before your ceremony, and they are left waiting around.

Or you put 6:30, and now your punctual guests are showing up at 6:15, a full 45 minutes early.

You are punishing your punctual guests over latecomers. They will notice. They will not be happy. As a vendor, I watched more than one wedding where guests sat around and grew visibly more agitated as they waited, and by the time the ceremony came, all were wiggling, shifting, sighing, fidgeting, etc. because they had already been forced to sit there for 30 minutes before the ceremony ever even started. You can't expect people to sit around idly that long. It's one thing when they choose to (some people show up 30 minutes ahead because that's who they are as people), it's another when you plan to make them.

Not only that, but people who are genuinely perpetually late will still probably show up at 7:10, even when you put 6:45.

Put the actual start time, and spread by website and word of mouth that guests should arrive early to get situated ("please plan to arrive at least 15 minutes prior.") Assign ushers to the doors who can escort latecomers in quietly and at appropriate times.

Put the real ceremony time on the invitation. You could even use wording like, "Doors open 6:30pm, Ceremony begins 7pm" similar to how concert tickets read. This reads as a more informal tone, however, and may not match what you are trying to achieve.

Just want to echo everyone else - put the real time. If you have guests or family who are habitually late, follow-up with them directly and make sure they know the show starts at 7:00, with or without them. As a guest, I would be super annoyed if I showed up early to what I thought was the real start time, only to wait around for 30-45 minutes.

Please put the real time on the invites. PEople know to show up a little early and will be super annoyed if they get there 20-30 minutes before the event and then have to wait around twice that long becuase you put the wrong time. If someone is late, they may slip in the back and you won't even notice. It's not that big a deal.

Put 7:00 p.m. Most guests will arrive 15-30 minutes before the stated time. As a guest, if you put 6:30 on the invite, but the wedding didn't start until 7:00, I would not be happy.

My ceremony will be starting at 5:00pm in July, and I put 4:30 on the invites. People always run late, and I plan on having a violinist play while they are waiting to it wold be an entertaining wait.

Put the actual time, for wedding ceremonies I think guests mostly understand that they need to be there for the start time and not after it. I was worried about that because my family is notoriously known for arriving late however, our guests arrived maybe 15 minutes in advance and only one family who had come rom far arrived when I was getting ready to walk down the aisle, luckily we caught each other and I asked them to wait until I made it down to the ceremony space before seating themselves. Our ceremony was outdoors and to get to the space you would go down one of three stairways, anyone of them would be very visible.