Late Wedding-6pm

Our ceremony will be at 6pm also with a cocktail hour and then we are planning on having dinner asap when the reception starts. I cant stand waiting for food but you have to serve dinner that is definitely dinner time.

One of the best sources for ideas is one of my favorite venues, Rock Island Lake Club; their menus are so inventive; www.rockislandlakeclub.com.

I'd say the most popular stations would be pasta, mashed potatoes, carving, bacon stations and mac and cheese. Sometimes at least one of the stations would be NOT an action station, but plated to take away (little grilled chicken or grilled shrimp salads). The biggest issues with stations that I see is that if people have to spend too much time waiting for things to be made to order, lines get crazy. It's better if the stations are separated instead of looking like a big buffet line.

With that, you need to have 15-20 pces of hors.

On the invite, you tell people it's going to be "cocktails and and hors d'oeuvre celebration. You don't seat everyone and do speeches and toasts and then leave everyone with the expectation of 'dinner'. You sprinkle toasts and dances throughout the evening. You do lots of different kinds of seating; high boys, cocktail tables, lounge seating. I prefer no assigned seating but having a couple of reserved tables for your parents and BP (this is what many of my venues do...)

I guess the best way to describe the format is to make the whole night feel like your cocktail hour only longer. In reality, it WILL be a little shorter because people aren't waiting around for courses to happen.

I did a wedding like this at a very cool NYC hotel's rooftop party room a few years ago, and it's one of my favorite weddings ever. The elevators opened and there was a giant, fabulous bar with prepoured cocktails and bartenders. Then we did the ceremony (after about a half hour). Then passed champagne and a toast, then passed hors, gradual station openings and dances later on. There was seating on the rooftop, inside on couches, and in two rooms adjacent to the room.

They DID use spotify for the music, which was totally fine because they basically needed background music except for the ceremony, which was live music.

It was GREAT, but there were a lot of the critical elements in play.

Either have dinner or prepare to watch everyone leave to get food. JS

Yeah you need to serve dinner. "Late" would be closer to 8:30 or 9pm. Our ceremony will start at 6:30, and dinner will begin at 7pm.

I'm just gonna add to what everyone else has said and say it again.... you need dinner!!

As long as I had food... no matter dinner or heavy appetizers I'd be happy!

I don't normally eat dinner until 7:30 or 8pm so I'd absolutely want dinner. Especially considering for a 6pm wedding I'd probably start getting ready at 4pm and wouldn't have time to eat until after the ceremony.

That's dinner time, and your guests will be hungry. They have to get dressed and drop kids of and drive to your venue, etc during the 5 o'clock hour. When do you think they will eat?? Feed the people. Catered, hot meal. Buffet is fine.

The worst wedding I've ever been to was when dinner started at 9:00. You definitely need to serve dinner, but I would make it as early as possible unless you plan to offer apps to hold people over.

We had to sit through a long gap and **** speeches before being fed a plated dinner, which my table was last to receive, so it was like 9:30 by the time I was eating and I was miserable.

That's not late at all. My ceremony is at 5:30 and reception 6-11. We are serving apps plus serving a plated dinner.

Lots of people work a 9-5 job, I seriously doubt most of them get home in time to have dinner served before 6. 6 isn't too late

In what world is 6:00 late? That's the very beginning of what is defined as "evening." Before that, you are in the afternoon and by definition not a formal event.

Most people typically work until 5:30 or 6. Then commute home. Then start cooking or head out to a restaurant. The earliest most adults I know would ever find themselves eating would be about 7:30.

You really need to search WW, because I've seen one too many of these types of threads...

How exactly is 6 pm late?

At this point it is dinner time and guests will expect a meal, when they realize it is just appetizers, they more than likely will leave.

I agree with the timelines PP have suggested. The majority of weddings I've been to have started after 6 pm, that's normal. What is not normal is starving your guests and teasing them with just appetizers.

This is a very normal time to start a wedding ceremony, and definitely offer dinner. If you can, I would suggest a first look to get pictures out of the way (and have a few moments of romance and intimacy with your FS!) This way you'll have more time with guests.

Blue Hen's timeline is ideal. Definitely follow that.

6 is when mine starts.

OP, are you coming back or nah?

Here's ours:

6 - ceremony

6:30-7:30 - cocktail hour

7:30 - guests seated, speeches

8:00 - 9:00 dinner

9:00 - dances, dance floor opens

10:00 - cake cutting

@beutivant I was literally just scrolling through this thread trying to see if she ever even answered lol

I cant even at these posts. Feed your damn guests, people!!!

It's almost 5:00. She's probably having dinner.