How early should guests arrive?

Honestly, some people just prefer to be early. Without knowing the details of your wedding, its hard to say if they will do it for a wedding or not. For example, with my wedding I was more concerned about "important" people (BMs, immediate family) being late. My ceremony and reception were at a hotel so people that arrived early were mostly people that were in the wedding (so they were getting ready either with me in my suite or they were spending the night so they were in their own hotel room). If its in a church and they are early they will just have to sit there. To be honest, if I were hosting a party at home and someone arrived early, I would just let them entertain themselves. They know what time the party starts, if they are early they need to figure it out.

If they show up early then they will have to face the consequences of entertaining themselves. 15 minutes is expected. If you're earlier than that then you will just have to wait. My aunt and uncle show up to church every week about a half hour early (very small, low populated) because they do not mind waiting (and I think secretly they like people-watching!). At least they are early rather than late!

My ceremony starts at 4:30pm. I will tell people to arrive at 4. I really don't want anyone arriving before that. Late guests arriving at 4:35 will not be let in.

In our FAQs on the wedding website we advised no earlier than 230 for a 3p start time. If they come earlier than that, they will just be standing outside the ceremony.

Honestly, if they do it for the wedding, they can just hang out and entertain themselves. It's weird that they show up so early and just wait, do they offer to help or anything? An adult can figure out when an event starts and if they want to show up a couple hours earlier, they can't expect everything to be ready to go. I would just stick to your schedule for the wedding day and not worry about it.

Beauty - if you tell people it starts at 4 they will get there as early as 3:30. People know to be a few minutes early to be in their seats. Don't be rude to your guests.

Beauty - if you tell people it starts at 4 they will get there as early as 3:30. People know to be a few minutes early to be in their seats. Don't be rude to your guests.

I should have added wedding and reception are at a private country club and not sure where they would hang out if they arrive too early. They would have access to the bridal party areas and I know fdil will not be wanting everyone dropping in before the ceremony.

Many of our friends and family arrived as early as 30 min (or maybe a bit more) before the ceremony. They all crowded up in the venue's lobby, lol.

On our invitation we mentioned that "doors open at 5" in addition to the ceremony start time, which is 5:30.

It does kind of depend on your guests though. I'm more worried about our guests being late, so we have a 15 minute buffer for the ceremony in case some important guests couldn't make it in time.

I put on my website that the venue will open to guests a half hour before the ceremony. Hopefully no one will show up before that but just to be safe my mom, my BMs, and I are planning to get there and be inside where no one will see me about an hour ahead. We are doing our hair and makeup at my house but putting on dresses there and I don't want anyone to see me walking in.

I was thinking the same. Our ceremony starts at 6pm and one caterer said to out 5:30 on invites but then I asked again to director and she said put 6 is fine