Skipping ceremony for a gap and distance

I would probably skip it, but that’s just me. That’s a lot of driving and when you’re tight on money (and time)!

It depends on the relationship. I would suck it up and go. But I think it's OK for people to skip the ceremony. I hate that gap too.

I would say it depends on how close you are with them. If it was someone I was close with I wouldn’t want to miss the ceremony. However with that said I think when there are gaps people kind of know some will skip the ceremony. I honestly wouldn’t be offended if someone skipped the ceremony. Truthfully I probably wouldn’t even notice!!

I would skip the ceremony. That is a whole lot of driving. If the ceremony was on the way to the reception that would be one thing but I'm not into driving that much unless they are my bff. I think it's really strange to have the distance so large between the 2 venues in the first place.

We’re catholic and I understand wanting to get married in your own church. However, asking guests to travel 2.5 hours between venues is certainly not ideal. I would have chosen a reception venue closer to the church. However, for you at least you’re heading in the right direction, but that’s still 5 hours of driving in one day. I might consider this depending on the relationship, but I don’t think they would be upset if you only attended the reception.

View Quoted Comment I wholeheartedly agree. If they have any issue w you guys skipping...well its very lousy of them!!!! Yes family weddings are important but they have to expect and if not then at least understand why you domt want to drive this much and kill your entire day on their wedding.

I'm glad I'm not crazy for thinking this is a lot of driving. They are cousins and they all attended our wedding and ceremony (although our ceremony was 20 mins and went straight into a short cocktail hour with oderves and drinks).

I don't think the bride and groom would care or notice, they're chill and nice people with approx 300-400 guests, but I'm scared our grandma and my SIL/other cousins will judge us for not being there. Maybe if we don't say anything they won't notice? We already told my MIL and she was cool with whatever we decide, but I would hate for grandma/SIL/cousin to walk up to my MIL before the ceremony and say where's Monica and Husband and then she says we skipped and they're like "*gaspppp* scandalous, we attended their ceremony"

Which stinks because they all live in town so to them they're obviously gonna attend the ceremony, but people forget that we don't live in that area so it's a pain for us to drive 2.5 hours out of the way.

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I wouldn’t worry about what others think. I’m sure if the situation were reversed, they might skip the ceremony too.

I would skip it. I don’t see the point of driving that far out to attend a small and kinda quick ceremony just to drive more to go to a reception. I’m not really sure why they thought that was a good idea and why guests would be willing to do that. Especially if money is tight.

Skip the ceremony - any reasonable person would understand why you can't do both.

Also, That's totally insane to give guests that big of a time gap plus make them drive that much !!

I think it's really up to you. I love ceremonies, so we would probably go to both. But I do agree, the gap & long driving distance is insane and feeding yourself sounds hard because the wedding should do that! If you do skip it, they may not notice if it's a large enough wedding?

Honestly...this sounds so bad lol but if any of my guests skipped the ceremony and went to the reception, I didn't notice at all lol!

One of my friends has a wedding coming up that's like this, and I'm toying with the idea of skipping the ceremony and only attending the reception because it's an hour away from us, so we won't be getting a hotel or anything (Also super tight on money) so we'd just be sitting somewhere for three hours.

I think it depends on your relationship with the person and how close you are. What does your FH think?

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I wouldn't have noticed either! I'm not worried about the bride and groom, we really like them, and they're chill people. they're just doing the ceremony to get the deed done for the grandparents they're just in it for the party later so I know they wouldn't care. FH is kind of up for anything, he's okay with doing whatever I think is best. The only issue is my SIL, we just started to patch things up with her during our wedding (she is an immature brat and we confronted her and said she needs to be nice), she was really nice during our wedding and now she's back to being indifferent towards us. So literally the only thing stopping us from skipping is pissing of SIL because she's the type to judge us for not attending a ceremony and we just started to patch things up with her. MIL understands because she knows where we live and knows how busy we are, but we don't have that kind of relationship with SIL so I can see her being like "well i attended both, why can't they" and then proceeding to be rude and grumpy towards us during the whole wedding reception

I would skip the ceremony without a doubt.

I would definitely skip the ceremony.
Who picks a venue that’s an hour and a half away from their ceremony site?!

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Oooooh, there's always gotta be that ONE person lol.

I know it's probably WAY more complicated than this, especially since you just patched things up with her, but I'd just shrug it off and let her act like an immature brat. Sounds like she'll find something somewhere down the line to be mad at anyway, some people are just like that. They enjoy making others miserable!

I'd just completely ignore her as much as possible during the reception, and tell her what you two decide to do is none of her business. Especially since literally everyone else understands!

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I know right! she's always finding something to be mad at us for, we went to 4 family events 4 weeks in a row RIGHT after our wedding and she still wasn't excited to see us. So I think you're right. She will find something to be mad at regardless! lol!

I would definitely skip the ceremony, unless my FH said we had to go (because it’s his family in your case). I’m really not a fan of long drives between ceremony and reception venues or long gaps of space where nothing is planned for you to do or to go. I’m sure they have to expect some people to do this.

Skip it. Such a big gap & distance is pretty rude to guests. In these forums, most couples who have gaps are ok with guests just attending the reception and that’s normal (which is so weird to me. Why throw a wedding where guests might attend only 1/2 of your special day?).

I personally hate gaps. I understand that sometimes people feel like they don't have a choice but as a guest it feels inconsiderate to make that choice to have such a long gap, especially knowing at least some guests are traveling from out of the area. If it were me, I think I'd just suck it up and go to the ceremony, but I don't judge you if you decide to skip it.