Timeline for day of...

I would do cocktail hour from 4-5:30 and then start having guests sit for dinner at 5:30. It would be rude to have the guests find something to do for an hour and then come back to the same place.

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Thanks for your comment! that is what I was thinking also (that it would be rude). Ideally we would do everything later. but your suggestion makes sense.

I would avoid a gap at all costs. Personally, I would start dinner at 5 or 5:30 instead of waiting until 6 because guests will start to get antsy/restless and will be ready to move on to the next part of the evening.

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Thanks! I'm used to late dinners so it is something I didn't think about.

I had a 3:30 ceremony myself. We also didn’t want a *super* early dinner. We considered extending the cocktail hour but our caterer recommended against it. Instead what we did to space dinner out a bit was to do some of the formalities before dinner. So, we had ceremony 3:30-4. Then straight into cocktail hour 4-5. Then moved guests to reception area (this takes time! Don’t underestimate that!). After guests found their seats and got settled, we did our intros — bridal party, parents, us, and then did our first dance... which involved inviting everyone up on to the dance floor. When the song ended and everyone finally settled down, we served dinner. It made for a nice little break and allowed us to delay dinner a tiny bit. We would’ve also considered doing parent dances here but our timeline ended up delayed a little bit in the end, but that’s another good way to use time well. Cake cutting is another option. Basically getting some of the photo op things out of the way early (bonus in that you’ll still be looking fresh!). Speeches could also happen before dinner.

At any rate our dinner was at least 2 hours before *we* usually eat, but it worked out just fine. I know I was hungry early! Weddings have a way of throwing everyone’s schedules off, so eating at an odd time ends up not feeling odd at all. (If I was attending a 3:30 wedding I’d probably only eat a late breakfast before hand, so I’d be ready to eat any time!)

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Thank you so much for your advice! so at what time did you end up serving dinner?