Should we change our wedding ceremony time?

Would you be able to change the times with the rest of your vendors? Especially the reception venue. I would prefer a later wedding, but it depends on your other vendor availability.

When is your reception?

I would prefer evening

Are you doing a first look? If yes, then if you want more time for pictures then the 5pm makes sense. If not, as a guest it really wouldn't matter to me since your wedding is a Saturday so I would be happy to attend at either time slot. For you and your bridal party, you will be a lot more rested with a 5pm versus a 1pm ceremony...as you would need to be up earlier for hair and makeup for the 1pm time.

If the reception wouldn't start until 6pm, I'd prefer an evening wedding. As a guest, I'd hate large gaps in time. If you're getting married at 1 and having an earlier reception that would end earlier then 1 is still fine. Don't make your guests spend the entire day with you.

Are you indoors or outdoors? If you're outdoors, later may be better as it will be cooler out.

Have you booked your reception venue yet?

I think 5pm is easier to work with for a typical dinner reception. You could start your cocktail hour around 6pm and go to midnight. I have to start mine earlier because the church's latest time is 2pm so my reception will only go to 10:30pm. I would rather do 6pm to 12am.

I would prefer and evening and I think that lends itself more to a party/ dancing atmosphere (if that's what you are going for). Agree with Brianna though that you should check with the rest of your vendors first.

Evening

@Celia/Brianna/FutureMrsC/Spaghetti

- Reception would be able to be moved back, right now we have it scheduled to be 2-7 (2-3 cocktail hour, then followed by the reception) since we didn't want a gap but the coordinator said that since we're still quite a ways out we can change it if needed.

-DJ can be moved back

-Photography can also be pushed back

@Becky - We are inside for both, I'm a sweaty person and could not survive an outdoor wedding in August

@FutureMrsC You make a great point about being well rested. I want a first look, or at least a first touch, and I couldn't figure out how to make that work with the time frame we were working with.

Thanks guys! I figured most guests prefer the evening time slot but just wanted to get your opinions. I have reached out to my vendors to get our time slot moved back!

Yep, I'd go for evening.

Whatever equals less time between the ceremony and food is my vote.

We had planned on doing a cocktail hour with some light hors d'oeuvres and cocktails (duh) after the ceremony followed by a buffet meal. Now we'll do the same thing, but maybe even shorten the cocktail hour since we will have more time to take pictures before the ceremony. We're moving the reception from 2-7 to 6-11 with 6-7 being the cocktail hour.

Thanks for your help everyone!