Please help with reception timeline

I have found some really good guidelines on Pintrest. It can give you a good idea where to put stuff. Hope that helps a little.

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I didn't even think of that, Ill check it out. Thank you

You need to get rid of the gap. It's rude to not have your guests hosted between the end of your ceremony and the beginning of the reception.

Are your ceremony and reception located at the same venue, if not what's the distance between? I've always read the typical wedding is 4-5hours.

If you’re expecting people at your ceremony in the middle of lunchtime and want them to stay until 11, you need more than just a meal and cake. You can start serving apps at 3, and then move into dinner at 4:30-5, or you can add a late night snack. One meal isn’t going to cut it for 11 hours of celebrating though.

View Quoted Comment No they are not but they are like 5 mins away

View Quoted Comment You definitely want something for them to do while you are doing pictures then. A cocktail hour with snacks and drinks while they wait would be nice.

View Quoted Comment That’s what i thought also becuase i was like well where are they suppose to go? But everyone’s telling me ( family btw) that i need to get photos done in between and that everyone will find something to do. But i was a little hesitant on it that’s why i’m like ahhh what do i do

Usually when you are off getting photos done, that's when everyone else is doing a cocktail hour. So let's say your ceremony starts at 12:30 and ends at 1:15(by the time you walk back down the aisle and exit) everyone will be heading to your venue and be there by 1:30-1:45ish people will linger and mingle for a bit, but if you have even some snacks or something for that extra hour before you come back at 3 then it'll make everyone a little looser and they may have met some people. Another idea, which we are doing is that before everyone sits down for the meal, we are being introduced during cocktail hour so we get a chance to mingle with the guests before all the other stuff at the reception happens. So our cocktail hour is actual an hour and a half. So that both helps eat some time, and gets dinner time closer to let's say 6:00. Now with all the other stuff going on at a reception I've seen it done two ways. One way, you do speeches, presentations, any traditions before/during the meal, then you start some "audience participation" stuff after eatingwhere you'd do the dances, the flower toss, the garter toss and such and finish with a dance that others join in on to kick off the dancing portion and later the cake. Or I've seen some people who do everything right as they walk in, before the meal. So that all that's left after the meal is cake. We are dividing ours up more like the first style so that we can have cake/snacks/ a Smores bar after 2 hours of dancing.

Are you doing the dollar dance with the dj or band? Also when I did my wedding they say to make sure guest have something to do while you are doing something private like photos. I had fruit, cheese, and drinks with strings playing in the other room. Honestly just anything to not leave them hanging. Longer wedding is more to handle, but you will get through it, best wishes!