Not serving a meal?

Your planned timeline is over lunch time, so you’d need to serve a meal. Move it to a 1:30pm ceremony, 2-4:30pm reception and you’re good. You could probably push the end time to 5pm but no later.

View Quoted Comment Agreed. I’d push everything back so it’s not over lunch! The reception will be shorter if there’s no full meal so guests can leave to have dinner. A 1:30 ceremony, 2-4:30/5 reception sounds good if you’ll be doing a more “cake and punch” reception.

How many guests are you expecting. I’m not having catering, instead we’re walking next door with our guests to my favorite restaurant.

We are hoping to use a food truck, cost was estimated at like 1/4 of what a caterer offered. Still have to ok it with the venue which is a community building.. fingers crossed!

As others have mentioned, that’s over lunch. A five hour reception is also too long if you won’t be serving a meal. I agree with the time suggestions made above. Ceremony at 1:30 or 2 and reception until 4:30 or 5.

I agree, you’d definitely want to serve food if it’s over lunch time but not any later then 5 which is dinner time.

You could try Olive Garden to cut costs or other resturants. Some Cafe places are cheaper and can do pastries fruits.

I think it's okay to have a cocktail reception, but you'd need to have heavy, plentiful apps—which would likely be as much or more than a plated or buffet meal. If you want to do light apps and a cake, shorten your reception to three hours max and host it outside regular meal time—so 2 pm-5 pm or 7 pm-10 pm.

It would have to be HEAVY appetizers, and that ends up being more expensive than catering a traditional meal. I'd either do something cheap like BBQ or Mexican for $10 pp, or do a non meal time wedding so 10-11 AM or 2-4 PM or 7-9 PM. It won't work for a wedding that long to not serve a meal.