Reception start time

Why don't you have a lunch instead of a dinner? 2 PM sounds good to me.

Honestly, if your ceremony lasts about 20-30 minutes and people get to the reception at like 1:00 (considering drive time give or take) 4:00 is too late. People will be sitting around twiddling their thumbs while they decimate the appetizer table and start drinking. I know this because we went to a full blown Catholic wedding (10:00 am - 12:00) got to the reception at like 12:30. They did not serve dinner until 4:00 or 5:00. People were DRUNK as skunks and they ran out of the cheese and crackers they had out...it was horrible.

Unless you're having a full blown Catholic wedding as GrayCatVintage mentioned which can last up to two hours which would end at 2:00, then 3:00 is not too bad, but 4:00 is definitely too late in my opinion

Graycat, that sounds like the worst wedding! Starving your guests haha!

I agree that you should consider simply having an afternoon event and be done by 6pm. You can't expect your guests to go to the movies in between your ceremony and reception, and even 3 or 4pm leaves enough time to go watch Spiderman 2...

My ceremony will be at 3:30with reception at 5 pm

Do an afternoon reception or find a church that can marry you later.

Yeah i would have a daytime reception if your ceremony is that early. If i was a guest, i would hate to get dressed for the ceremony, then spent 3-4 hours doing something else to kill the time..I had to do this for a wedding...my FH and I ended up going to lunch right after the ceremony in the town until the dinner started.

Thanks everyone! Good news is I was able to change the time to 2pm(:!

I'd say just do an afternoon lunch reception. We had the choice between a noon or 7pm ceremony and picked noon because I'd much prefer a lunch reception than a late-evening one (7pm is later than I like to eat, forget doing dinner at 9pm!).

2pm is still pretty early and you should factor that into your plans.

A good rule of thumb is no more than 90 minutes between the end of your ceremony and a meal at the reception (or, at least, the start of festivities). More than that and people get cranky and sometimes leave when they find out how long it will really be.

And I still suggest the six hour rule: whatever plans you have for your guests ceremony/reception) should wrap up in under six hours. If you're having a dance, it can go longer than that, but the events (like bouquet, garter, dollar dance, 1st dance, or anything else special you may have planned) should be done in under 6 hours from the ceremony start time.

Think if you were a guest. How much of a gap would you be willing to tolerate? I'm going to one in a few weeks with a 2.5 hour gap and we've toyed with the idea of skipping the ceremony. Don't hate me, hate the schedule.

I changed the ceremony time to 2 cuz my reception starts at 4. The ceremony ends at 3.

That'll be fine it will be open with the dessert table and bar(: thanks everyone for your tips!