Friday Brides what's your wedding day timeline?

Hi Dori L, our ceremony is 2.30pm-3.30pm church is 20mins from venue, allowing 10mins grace period. Cocktail hour is 4pm -5pm. (BP taking photo's at church and in the gardens during this time).

5pm reception starts and ends at midnight. Our OOT (20 in total) guests are mostly staying at the venue hotel. Those who are not will leave when they're ready. Have noticed most folks have taken a day off work, those who haven't are evening invitees, so no problem there. Friday weddings are getting popular here (amongst black folks) in UK, and is fast becoming the normal.

Be careful because depending on where you are in Chicago that time frame 4:30-6 can be a nightmare for traffic on a Friday. I would push the ceremony as late as possible to be most convenient for your guests and their work schedules. I would be less concerned about the ending time since it is a Friday and then its the weekend.

Our ceremony start time is at 6:00 to 6:30 (or less), cocktail from 6:30 to 7:30, reception from 7:30 to 11:30 -12:00. at first we were planning on ceremony being at 5:00pm, but was told by the venue that a later start time would be better because it's a Friday evening.

ETA: Ceremony and Reception is all in one place.

Thanks ladies! @ Reggae Princess, I won't worry about people who decide not to stay overnight. It's up to them. Wow, that's interesting that it's almost a norm in the UK. I'd love to visit there someday BTW

@Emmy, that's so true. Traffic can be horrendous on Friday evening. When I attended a Fri. wedding a few yrs. ago I had to factor that in so I'm hoping my guests will do the same. Either way, I'm starting my wedding on time as long as me and FH are present, LBVS.

Friday is a big day here; I don't think it really matters what time you start; unless it's at 8:00, your guests will have to take some time off from work.

Most of my Friday weddings start between 5:00 and 6:00 PM

Thanks Jamgirl and Celia. 5pm sounds like a winner! I agree Celia, most likely family and friends are taking the day or half-day off.

I'm doing a ceremony at the church 5:30-6 and starting cocktail hour at 630... Venues ten minutes away but there will be traffic. I was original going to do 6 but we want picture while the suns up and at sunset so that was how I decided

Friday at 8pm. thats when the sun begins to set (june 26th) and the lights at the venue will turn n & twinkle.

@Dori L, yes what's happened is this, most black folks have funerals on Friday, for this reason. So it doesn't cut into the weekends, and the trend has started to overflow to weddings, A big factor is also money. You can save almost 40% of the cost doing so.

Sounds good Pinotgirl and AndixLyn thanks for sharing your whole timeline

Here is draft of our schedule not very detailed or set may everything from the guest arrive to start 30 minutes later.

2pm - Bridal party arrives to get ready

4:50pm - 5:20pm - Groom & Groomsman take pictures

5:30pm - 6:00pm - Bride & Bridesmaid take pictures

6:30 - Guest arrive to be seated and sign guestbook

7pm - Ceremony

7:30 to 8:30 - Cocktail Hour

8:30 to 9pm - Guest seating, bridal party/bride & groom entrance, first dance

9:00 to 10pm - Blessing of the food & dinner (speeches and toasts)

10pm -2am - Reception (dancing, bouquet & garter tossing, etc

Mines a Friday. A lot are coming from out of town (60% flying 20% are three hours away or more by car). We are having our ceremony at 5, hoping it only lasts about 15 minutes, then our reception is At the same place, so right after.

Our venue closes at 10.

We are on a Friday. Was going to do 6 pm ceremony (everything is in one venue), cocktail to start right after ceremony, but due to picture times we wouldn't eat until 8ish. So, we are doing a start time of 5