Invitation time?

I asked this same question and I was told to put the time the actual ceremony starts. People know to show up early.

View Quoted Comment Thanks so much! I guess I'm just afraid people will run late 😬

Put the ceremony start time. People will hopefully know to show up early.

If you're worried people might run late, I suggested to PP this morning that she include this under her FAQ section on her wedding website.

For example: "What time should I arrive?"

"Please arrive 15 minutes early to allow enough time for you and your guest/family to find seating."

Put the time the ceremony actually starts, in this case, 4:30pm. Most people know not to be late to an event like this. Others are just late habitually, and putting an earlier time on your invitations isn't going to make any difference.

If you were to put an earlier time, then you'd have a bunch of guests sitting around waiting for too long.

View Quoted Comment That's a clever idea. Thank you!

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I am too but you also don't want people to be sitting around. I know for wedding I try to be 30-15min early so imagine if you made the invites for 15-30min before the wedding actually started and now you have people who have been sitting around for 30min to an hour.

You put the start time of the ceremony, so you would put 4:30.

I've been to a few weddings where people showed up on time or late, plus my FH is known for being late. Some others I am inviting are known for being late as well. So I am putting 3 on the invitation even though we will not begin until 3:30 to avoid any on-time or late comers.

I know my family, I know my friends. I know they will be late (ugh) I am doing 15 minutes earlier on invites. Frankly it's a morning ceremony and 15 minutes isn't a big difference for the few who show up early.
This is a know your crowd question, if you know more people who are early birds don't do it, if you're like me where everyone runs behind then it's different.

I'd put 4:30 on the invites. People know to arrive early. You could always plan a 5-10 minute late start time but people generally know the time on the invite means the time it starts. If a bride put 4 or 4:15, we would arrive at 3:45 or 4, so we would just be waiting awhile for the actual start time.

Absolutely put the exact start time. As PP have said guests know to come early to be seated so if you were to put 4 people would start arriving by 3:30 and then they would be upset when the actual ceremony doesn't start until 4:30 when they were told 4 on the invite.

The average wedding starts about five minutes late to accommodate stragglers. But the correct time is what should go on the invitation. My FH is not known for timeliness, so I'm encouraging him to get dressed at the venue.

I've heard to always actually start the ceremony 10-15 minutes after the advertised time, to accommodate for latecomers or just any last minute issues on your end. If you really have to have the actual start time at 4:30 instead of 4:45, I'd probably put 4:15 on the invitation.

I put 4:15 on our invitations even though we're starting at 4:30. Our ceremony is an hour away from where most guests live and the driveway to get to the end of the property is a good additional 10 minutes of driving. Better safe than sorry in my opinion.

I was always told to put the ceremony start time (ours is noon), but then my mom spoke to a few of her friends who said they'd "be there at noon" and my mom told them no, the ceremony actually STARTS at noon, if they arrive AT noon, the doors will already be closed and they'll be shut out. Her friends were completely appalled and said they've "always" waited "at least 30 minutes before weddings actually start."

Not sure what universe these perpetually-late people are from (lol) but in hindsight I feel like putting 15 minutes ahead would've been smarter. I will be so annoyed if people are late and either (1) miss it or (2) we have to wait for them, and I don't want to be annoyed at anyone on my wedding day lol. I'm now mentally planning on starting around 12:05-12:10 because people don't seem to get that "12:00" means "starts at 12:00"

View Quoted Comment See this is what makes me nervous! We're having an outdoor ceremony and I don't want people just walking up to our ceremony as I'm walking down the aisle or something

I put 3:15 on my invites. The ceremony will start at 3:30. My reason for this was that we are getting married out in the forest and it's a bit of a drive to get there. I am including directions cards along with invites, but I'm still worried guests will need a few extra minutes to find the facility, park and walk up.

View Quoted Comment I'm having an outdoor wedding too. I'm worried the caterer is going to drive up during the ceremony 😬

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Yeah, I read on here that we should put the start time of the ceremony, and etiquette-wise, that IS what you should do, but something important to remember is that many of your guests will not know every etiquette rule, lol. I would plan to start between 5 and 15 minutes after whatever you put on the invitation (definitely no more than 15 minutes though because then at that point it'd be rude to the people who arrived on time). Or, alternately, you could put the actual start time on the invitation (you said 4:30 right?), and then on your details card you could say "please arrive no later than 4:15pm, as the ceremony will be starting at precisely 4:30pm." That may be a good middle-ground option because then you're not punishing the people who arrived on time. Though, the people who are late are usually also the people who wouldn't bother to read the details card. I would still plan to start about 5 mins late regardless lol. Some people are just always going to be late no matter what you say or do.