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Rebecca
Dedicated June 2021

Wedding Day timeline

Rebecca, on June 26, 2019 at 6:01 PM Posted in Planning 0 10
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I’ve got a planning dilemma that I am hoping some of you might be able to shed some light on.
My fiancé and I were hoping to rent the Japanese Gardens at a local park for a late morning/early afternoon ceremony in June of 2020. We are in the CA Central Valley so it can get pretty hot here in Summer (hence the late morning/early afternoon) BUT I just found out we can’t rent the gardens until AT earliest 2PM, when it would be hotter.
The reception venue we like is rented at a flat rate for 12 hours (this 12 hours includes the time it takes to set up BEFORE the day of the wedding)
I’m trying to imagine how much time we would need to setup for the ceremony (really just decorate - the venue will have all chairs set up at the start of rental time) and reception.
What do you think the ideal ceremony start time would be if the rental doesn’t start until 2PM?
The time the ceremony starts/ends may help determine whether we should find a different reception venue if we won’t really get the actual 12 hour use of the reception hall...

OR if we should just find a new ceremony venue so we can have a late morning/early afternoon ceremony like we planned and get more time out of the reception venue.

So much goes into planning/coordinating that I didn’t think of!

10 Comments

Latest activity by Rebecca, on October 27, 2019 at 10:40 AM
  • Allie
    Master August 2019
    Allie ·
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    I would probably start the ceremony at 6 pm. So you have time to set up and get pictures beforehand.

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  • M
    Legend June 2019
    Melle ·
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    I spent 1.5-2 hours setting up for my 5p ceremony and that included set up of chairs by the wedding party and a diy cocktail hour. I didn't have many decorations though but I'd like to think if you've a large enough party you can make it work! However I wanted my reception to start at 6 so I hired a day of coordinator who also had an assistant to set up my reception.
    In other words, if you want to do the set up yourself then maybe leave a couple hours to set up for each event
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  • Rebecca
    Dedicated June 2021
    Rebecca ·
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    The rental window is only from 2pm-6pm. Or 3pm-7pm.
    The later we start the ceremony, the less time we will have at the reception venue, which at a flat 12 hour rate even if we don’t use all 12 hours I would want to get the most of...
    So I’m trying to figure out if we need to change one of the venues...
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  • Rebecca
    Dedicated June 2021
    Rebecca ·
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    The ceremony venue will have the chairs already set up for us, so my understanding is we would just have to set up the decor. I’m just a hyper planner so not having an idea of how long setup would take is hard!
    I was thinking about a day of coordinator as well.
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  • Cristy
    Master May 2021
    Cristy ·
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    So, if you get a 12-hour rental window, then you'd have from 2pm to 2am, right? I live in CA, although not in the Central Valley, I'm well aware of how hot it gets there. At a guess, I think it will take probably 2-3 hours to set up the decor for ceremony and reception. So, I would schedule the ceremony to start at 5 or 6pm, then the reception could go from 6:30pm to 11:30pm, giving you 2.5 hours for cleanup before your 12 hours runs out. Seems like plenty of time.

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  • Rebecca
    Dedicated June 2021
    Rebecca ·
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    Our ceremony venue would have a 4 hour rental time (2PM-6PM) and our reception venue is a 12 hour rental. Any setup time prior to wedding day counts against 12 hours...so if we use 2 hours day before to set up, we would have 10 hours on wedding day.
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  • Yoice
    VIP March 2019
    Yoice ·
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    I think 2 hours would be perfect. You can have the ceremony at 4 or 4:30 pm.
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  • H
    Master July 2019
    Hannah ·
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    So they are flexible with splitting the hours? I think if you can do some set-up the day before, that sounds great. Also, most receptions are about 4-5 hours, so most people probably wouldn't stay for a party longer than that. I also like the idea of having the ceremony space later, like 5 or 6. How long of a ceremony are you expecting to do? Usually, non-church weddings without a mass are about a half hour.
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  • Rebecca
    Dedicated June 2021
    Rebecca ·
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    So we have the ceremony location from 2PM-6PM and we have to be all wrapped up/cleaned up/exiting the location BY 6.
    Our photographer said we would need about an hour for photos after the ceremony, so ideally we’d want our ceremony to be over by about 4:30/4:45.
    The venue sets up all of the chairs for us so we don’t need to worry about that and since we are already getting married in the Japanese Garden we are thinking we may not need to do much in terms of ceremony decor.
    Do you think it would be feasible to start the ceremony by 3:30/4?
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  • Rebecca
    Dedicated June 2021
    Rebecca ·
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    So we have a two location wedding - ceremony in one place (that’s the 2pm-6pm rental) and the reception is at another location about 10-15min drive from ceremony location.
    Our ceremony rental is a firm 4 hours - we have to be cleaned up and gone BY 6pm.
    Our reception venue is the flexible 12 hours, meaning we could (and plan to) split those hours over two days, use a couple hours the day before for set up and decor. We’re planning to use no more than 3/4 hours the day before so that we can have the remainder of the 12 hours for the day of.
    I am guesstimating a timeline of ceremony start time 4PM (we are not planning any kind of religious ceremony, so I presume no longer than 30-40minutes) then pictures after. Arrive at the reception around 5:30/6. Then I would imagine reception ending around 10/11PM but I really just don’t know if any of that is realistic 😅
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