Is an hour long enough?

Do you have anyone to help you take down the chairs? Ceremonies, depending on your religious traditions, can be extremely short (mine, which is secular, is 15 minutes) so yes you definitely could keep it under an hour. My concern would be with the setup and take down and how it would affect any reception you have planned.

If that hour includes set up and clean up, that’s going to be really crunched for time. Do you have a wedding planner or family who will be helping? I also can’t imagine setting up my ceremony in my wedding dress, that just seems wrong. While an hour is more than enough time to have a ceremony (unless you’re thinking full catholic mass, but they don’t do them outside of church), it may not be enough time for everyone to get on, set up, ceremony, photos, cleaned up, and off. However, if spending the extra money is truly going to put you over budget, round up the troops and start asking some of your guests for help. While it will require some serious time management, it’s not impossible.

Like others have said, it depends on the length of the ceremony. I think ours was 10 minutes or so, in which case you'd have time. If you're planning a mass-like ceremony, you'll need more time.

Our ceremony is scheduled for 30 minutes. Most guests prefer a short ceremony anyway. I would keep it at an hour and save!

Our ceremony was about 20 minutes but I'm not sure how long set up, processional, recessional, etc. was in addition.

Thanks for the replies! I’ll have my family helping hopefully, and I haven’t gotten a response from the venue yet whether or not they’ll be helping with set up. There’s a short boat ride over to the island and if everyone if hopefully ready to go right before 8 it should be perfect. And I’m planning on having about a 20 minute actual ceremony and only lunch at a restaurant after for my “reception”