How late to the reception should the bridal party be?

I'm not going to be at my cocktail hour at all really. Specifically using that time for pictures

The cocktail hour should start at 4:30 while you’re taking pictures. If you’re waiting until after the ceremony to do pictures, the wedding party will miss cocktail hour.

It's normal for the bridal party to miss most, if not all of the cocktail hour. I'll probably miss at least 75% of it for pictures and whatnot. Part of the purpose of the cocktail hour is to keep your guests busy and fed while you take care of pictures and whatnot.

I believe the cocktail hour is to be used to make up for the fact that the bridal party is taking pictures. That is what happened when I was the MOH at my BFF's wedding. Then someone, I'm guessing the wedding planner, had got the guests to the part of the venue where we were all supposed to make our entrance. My BFF had a huge wedding.

I'm doing a much smaller wedding. I'm not even sure we will do an introduction thing, I know it is typical but I want a more causal wedding. Even so I believe the cocktail hour will be used to cover for us while we are taking pictures.

You're better off missing Cocktail hour than making your guests wait for you (which they shouldn't have to do). Your cocktail hour should start when guests start to arrive from the church to the reception site, so about 4:30.

Ok, we cannot open our reception until 5PM unless we pay more which is not in the budget. I don't want to move the wedding back, because if we do that so the non-fam guests don't have to wait at all, the family taking pictures at the church would mostly miss cocktail hour, and we'd miss like an hour and a half of our own reception, due to travel time. So I was planning to suggest to guests that they wait, mingle, and watch picture taking at the church until 4:20 so they won't be waiting outside the banquet hall for the doors to open. (This is not the "bridal party pictures" - as I mentioned we'll be going to a park near the venue). Is that improper to tell people to wait around? What if we set up a table outside the church with lemonade or something and a few lawn games? Sounds easy but could end up being a ton more logistical work for us - we don't have a wedding planner.

I'm not going to the cocktail hour. That's the main purpose...its a time buffer and keeps your guests happy and entertained.

We have this exact same problem, so we are doing a first look and getting 90% of the photos done before the ceremony. We want to leave the church at the same time as our guests so we don't get caught in traffic behind them. We will finish any other pictures (cousins, etc.) when we get to the reception.

We really want to be a part of our cocktail hour and take that time to mingle with our guests. Also I will probably be hungry by then and want to eat some of the awesome apps we are having. Our timeline looks like this:

10:00am Hair and makeup

2:00pm Photographer arrives (two photographers - one for bride/bms and one for groom/gms)

We do all-girl and all-guy shots now

3:00pm First look and family portraits

4:00pm Leave for ceremony (half mile away)

4:30pm Ceremony

5:15pm Leave for reception

6:00pm Reception arrival/cocktail hour

7:00/7:15 Introductions and dinner

I’m missing my entire cocktail hour for taking pictures, and my ceremony and reception are at the same venue. It’s common for the bridal party to completely miss the cocktail hour.

I do suggest you factor a little more time into the time between the ceremony ending and the photos starting. Even if your ceremony starts and ends exactly on time, I doubt you’ll be able to start taking photos immediately. All your guests will be leaving the church, and some might try to stop you to say an early congratulations.

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I think as long as you have something entertaining your guests for that time period, it should be okay. People will likely mingle a bit after the ceremony anyway, especially if there's a bit of a gap, so maybe having something out for them to drink and a few things to do wouldn't be a bad idea. It could be as simple as having bean bag toss or something out with large jugs of lemonade, and storing them in the church (if they'll let you) until the next day.

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Thanks, basically sounds like a lot of brides miss the entire hour, so I think if we plan to start pictures at 3:50 and it don't start until 4-4:10, that should put the family at the reception by 5:15 at the latest which I think is decent, and we should be able to get back by 6, hopefully sooner.

Can anyone think of other really low-maintenance activities we could set up at the church, besides lawn games, in case of rain? I could probably ask my pastor if we could set up the day before and collect our things the following day, if it's something small and indoors.

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Thanks for sharing the timeline! My FH is adamantly against first look, so I don't think that plan would work for us, but that's pretty smart, I wish we could get family pics out of the way earlier.

We are doing first look photos and bridal party and parent photos before our ceremony. We want to spend as much time with our guests and enjoying the delicious food along with everyone else. The reception and ceremony are really far away from each other... is getting married in that church a definite yes?

I'm probably not going to make it to our cocktail hour. We aren't doing a first look (or aren't planning to right now) and will do our photos after. I'm offsetting this by doing some photos with the bridesmaids before the ceremony so that we won't have a ton to do after the ceremony with them. I think it is pretty common for the bride and groom to not make it to the cocktail hour. From what I understand, this is a way to occupy your guests while you're taking photos instead of having them awkwardly waiting around for you.