What time do guests arrive?

Yes, you put on the invite when the ceremony starts. i would expect some guests to arrive 30 minutes or more early.

Put the start time of the ceremony. Guests will know how to budget their time to make sure they are there before it starts.

Thank you lol - I hate when i think i have it all figured out and then i get a question like that that has me second guessing!

On your invite, yes, you should put the actual start time. For your DJ though, I would guess people will start arriving about a half hour before that (if you want music playing for when guests start to arrive).

If the DJ will be playing music for your ceremony, they probably just want to know what time you want them to start. 30 minutes prior to the ceremony is when I assumed alot of people would start to show up and that's when I wanted them to start playing light music. You should still put the actual start time of your ceremony on your invitation.

Definitely put the start time of the ceremony. Of course people are going to show up early. Can you imagine putting the time 30 mins before the actual ceremony? Guest will show up probably an hour early and that would look terrible. We have the ceremony set for 5pm and have music starting to play 30mins early

Our DJ's standard was to start playing music 30 minutes before the ceremony, so that seems like a good time to put on your DJ sheet.

And, yes, put the actual start time on the invitation.

You'll need to look at your contract to see how many hours are included with your DJ package? Is your DJ playing your Ceremony and Reception? Ceremony only? Reception only? All this will determine his start times. If you have him/her for 5 hours and your reception is 4 hours then that would leave an hour of play time; 30 minutes for Ceremony and 30 minutes before as guests are waiting for it to start (example).

My venue requests that you have guests arrive 30 minutes before the ceremony. They provide a light pre-ceremony cocktail reception for them. I say run it pass your venue as well as the DJ.

Most guests will start arriving about 30 mins. before your ceremony start time. You should put the TRUE start time on your invitation for that reason (don't pad the time). Your DJ probably wants to know so that he/she knows what time to start the prelude music.