i Made a Rough Timeline, But It Seems really Tight!

Does the church have a place for you and your bridal party to hide away until the ceremony? Getting there an hour ahead of time seems unnecessary unless you plan on getting changed into your gown there. I'd take some more time wherever you are getting ready to relax a bit more!

Also, I get the Catholic gap. It's very common and normal where I'm from too in NJ. In your case though, the cocktail hour seems pretty short. Could you maybe get the venue to open and start a half hour earlier? This would make the gap an hour, which isn't awful. Or you could even do a receiving line at the church which would eat up a lot of your gap and would also mean you wouldn't have to do table visits.

My last thing is the toasts. How many guests are you having at your wedding? I'd be concerned that not all of the guests would be through the buffet line and back to their seats to enjoy the toasts.

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Hi! Thanks for the thoughts! Yes, the Church has a bridal suite and that's where everyone will be changing and having our pre-wedding bridesmaid/bride photos done so I thought that would be an okay timing.

So the cocktail hour runs for 45 minutes and the venue does not allow a cocktail hour to begin before 5p.m. In addition, the church begins confessions after our ceremony and as such, specifically prohibits a receiving line, so that had to be nixed too! :/

Luckily for us we are having four identical buffet lines running simultaneously. One of the reasons we are excited about our venue is all the reviews say the lines moved really quickly and everyone got food fast and it was delicious! So I'm thankful they seem to have a good system for that!

5-5:30 seems short for cocktail hour, but I guess it depends how quickly the bar & servers can get food out. I'd also say 20 minutes may be short for a buffet depending on the number of guests.

Curious, what is a Catholic Gap? I have been to many Catholic weddings and am having one myself and have never heard of it. Must be a regional thing, just curious!

How many in your Bridal Party? Just asking becuase the get ready time is so early, my ceremony is an hour after yours and we are starting around 9:30am. Obviously better safe with more time than less time lol but just making sure you get as much sleep as you can!

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It's actually 45 minutes-they just open up the ballroom so if people want to go down, they can. Luckily the appetizers are stationary and will be out. Also, the buffet will have 4 synchronous lines so they said (and reviews confirmed) people get their food REALLY quickly. This was a big plus with the venue so I'm hoping they come through with it!

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Sure! It might be regional. My family's from Appalachia-but my FH's family is from Michigan and they do the same thing there. Basically because Catholic churches frequently have confessions or Saturday evening masses, the wedding has to be very early in the afternoon 11-3 typically. The latest our ceremony could be was 1:30. So if you want to have a traditional evening reception with dinner and dancing you take a gap in between the ceremony to get pictures done, etc. And the guests come back for the reception (in this case at 5 so It's a 1.5 hour gap). For people living in the area they can go home. For people traveling as guests, they can check into their hotel or hang out in the city. I've provided places they can go for that hour and a half if they prefer.

I have six girls plus my mother and grandma and FMIL. So it's 10 people getting hair and makeup. They told me they would need to start at least by 6:30 to have everyone done by 11:30. Basically they can do two people per hour for hair and makeup! I wish I could sleep in! Haha