Invitation Wording- time of ceremony? advice

I'm like you. As someone who is always early, I would be very upset if the starting time was earlier on the invitation than they are actually planning.

We planned to start at 12 for our wedding and that was what we put on our invites. We didn't have any issues. In fact, the only issue was that so many people had gotten to our venue SO early that we couldn't do our first look outside like we had planned.

We included a directions enclosure in our invites. However it was also so we could specify where the parking lot was. We included the address of the venue on the actual invite.

My church wedding starts at 3:30 and that's the time I put on the invitation.

No maps but I did give directions from North/South.

I don't think you have to write the address twice, just name the place on the invitation.

My ceremony and reception venues are different, so I put the address of the church on the invitation and named the reception venue ex. Dinner and Dancing to follow at Stow Acres Country Club at 6 in the evening. Then I had a reception card which listed the address of Stow Acres CC. Hope this helps!

I always print the actual time of the event. I would not want guests showing up early, especially if you are doing some photos right before.

Maps are helpful if you have a lot of OOT guests. You can include them only as needed.

When both events are in the same location, you don;t typically need the reception card. You can simply include the address of the ceremony location, and a line that follows indicating there will be a reception after.

"The honor of your presence is requested

....

Saturday, the eighth of March

two thousand eighteen

at two o'clock in the afternoon

Fox Green Country Club

2621 Hunter Avenue

Atlanta, Georgia

Dinner Reception immediately following"

~or~

"Dinner & Dancing to follow"

I have been to several weddings where the invitation stated the wedding would start at a particular time and started 30 - 45 minutes later. I personally do not like this trend as I am very punctual. If the invitation said 3p. I will arrive no later than 2:30p. However, the wedding started just before 4p and sometimes later. Like you, I did not like it at all.

Our family and friends know us very well. When we had our meet and greet for our bridal party. We requested everyone be there by 6p. The last person got there at 5:40p and he called and let us know he was running late. We are having a late ceremony and will provide the correct time. However, the church where the ceremony will be held has a gate. We have advised everyone that the gate will be closed 15 minutes prior to the ceremony.

We are providing directions from the ceremony to reception in the invitations and also in the program just in case someone forgets to bring the map.

Thank you ladies. Glad to see it wasnt just me! I think I will leave the address off but I will add in directions to the location on our additional info card.

We put our actual start time!

We did a map and put a one of those QR codes on it--you scan it with your smart phone and it gives you directions on your phone!

Good luck with the invites! We did ours too and I had a lot of fun doing them!