What time to put on wedding invitations?

That’s sticky. Is there a reason why you are not able to invite everyone to the ceremony and make it easier on you? There is no cost per person for the ceremony like there is for the reception. It’s seen as a faux pas and playing favorites to have different groups attending different parts of the day when they are back to back at the same venue with no buffer time.


Are you able to take any formal pictures before the ceremony? When will you be greeting your ceremony guests?
It’s pretty rare for the ceremony to run late. And it’s difficult to say the least to keep that tight of a schedule unless you have a very militant coordinator with a team on top of everything. Especially when you have 2 different groups.
If you still want the reception guests separate, put 4:30 on their invites. If they arrive earlier, then it makes you look like you didn’t plan well. Even if that is not your intention at all. So it’s easier/better to just invite everyone at the same time to the ceremony or don’t invite anyone to the reception only.

Honestly, I’d send out separate invitations with separate times. Seems like the only way to avoid the overlap. Also, try adding 30 minutes prior to your start time. My ceremony starts at 5 but on the invitation I put 4:30.

It's a good question because this type of plan isn't commonly done. Look up tiered wedding, because that what this is currently. The concern and etiquette issue here is that you run the risk of hurting feelings by treating your guests differently. The 25 that didn't get to attend the ceremony will find out fast that almost everyone else did.

"Wasn't that a lovely ceremony?!?"

"uh, we didn't get invited to that"

Best way to avoid that as Michelle says is to find a way to include everyone in everything.

View Quoted Comment We aren’t really trying to hide anything. It’s just most ceremony we’ve been too it looks like only family member goes. Other non family member guest tend to be only appear when during cocktail hour into reception.

Unless there is a very compelling reason to do otherwise, I would highly suggest just inviting everyone to all events. What you are attempting to do is considered a tiered event, and it is advised against for many reasons (Poor etiquette and difficulty scheduling being 2 major ones).
If there’s absolutely zero way of inviting everyone to both events for some reason, then you are going to need to order two different sets of invitations- one for guests invited to the ceremony, and one for guests who aren’t. Also, I would highly advise against listing a false start time on your invitations, like a previous person mentioned. Guests typically show up 15 minutes prior to the start time listed on the invitation. If you lie to your guests and say your ceremony is beginning 30 minutes earlier than it truly is, that means many guests are going to be waiting 45 minutes to an hour. Plus, what if your wedding ends up starting a little bit late (it happens frequently)?! Now they are waiting over an hour! This is incredibly rude to do to your guests. List the proper start time on your invitation.

I cannot recall attending a single ceremony that started on time. They have started somewhere between 15-45 mins later than the time on invitations. If you don’t invite everyone to all events, you are setting yourself up for problems.
I asked that guests arrive not later than 5:15pm for our 5:30 start. We’ll see what happens.

I would just invite everyone to everything to avoid this problem (unless there is some cultural reason why you can't)

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Well I can't advise on how to do that, because it's against etiquette. There's no great way to do something like that in my experience.

How is it done in your family/culture? Maybe ask someone in your social group.

I hear what you’re saying. I think this might happen more if it is a church wedding and there is a long Window of time between the church ceremony and cocktail hour. I think what ends up happening is everyone is invited to the ceremony but some/very few people just simply don’t show up and only attend the reception. If I were you I would invite everyone to the ceremony.

Hello Kimoanh the time that you should put on your wedding invitation is your start time is when your wedding ceremony will begin

I’d also advise against just inviting those 25 to your reception. As PPs said, there’s not usually any/much cost for the ceremony. Since you predict it’s because they may not choose to come to the ceremony and just come to the reception, still invite them to the whole thing and let them be the ones to decide when they would like to come. You’ll avoid hurt feelings among those 25.

View Quoted Comment Thanks, I think we just might invite all to ceremony, cocktail and reception.

We've been to a wedding where only family was invited to the ceremony and the invitation we received had a ceremony time and a reception time. The ceremony was a full catholic mass and was at a different location than the reception. There was no location for the ceremony indicated on the invitation and instead there was a note about only family attended due to capacity and then everyone else showed up to the reception. It was actually great, because the last thing I want to do is sit through a full Catholic mass lol.

View Quoted Comment Thanks! This is the first response I get that doesn’t make me seem like a bad guy. I will take this in consideration.

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I dont think its rude to only be invited to the reception especially if youre only including family at the ceremony. Im sure etiquette dictates otherwise, but do you really want the people who are going to be salty about it at your celebration anyway? Also, etiquette is antiquated and social norms change all the time. This is never an issue with people who elope or do small destination weddings or whatever.