My ceremony is at a Catholic Church. We are not doing a full mass, just the ceremony. So it should last about 30 minutes. The reception is a 20-25 minute drive from the church.
The ceremony will start at 4:30pm. My reception venue wants to start the cocktail hour at 5:30pm. I'm a little worried about the ceremony starting late (I don't plan on that happening), the ceremony going longer than expected, or anything else that would cause the guests to either rush to the reception site or miss some of cocktail hour.
On the other hand, if I push cocktail hour back to 6pm, the bar won't be open and some guests could be standing around until then if everything does run on time. The caveat is there are a few restaurants and bars right next to the reception site they could kill some time at.
So, would you start the cocktail hour at 5:30pm like the reception venue suggests, or push it back to 6pm?
