Best Time of Day to get married

GMI

Well, we've done it. We've booked the venue! for sept 2010. thats church and venue...tick!

Now we need to let the venue know ASAP what time of day our ceremony will be. Now I know most people go with 2pm, but we're afraid the hanging around waiting will kill our nerves. Also makes it long day before people get a bit of grub. With the timing and photo's etc, it could be 6 / 6.30pm.

We are strongly considering a 12 midday wedding, so that its up get ready and GO! get the hard part over and done with and still have the majority of the day ahead of us to enjoy married! The only question, is with the bride and 4 bridesmaids, is there enough time to get hair / make up and all the wedding morning bits done and get ready on time?

Any advice appreciated.

Marianne S

Hi GMI, we've booked our wedding ceremony for 1:30pm, if you have people travelling a long distance 12 is quite early. Send an e-mail to your hotel and ask them to give you a run down of the day, ours asked us for a rough estimate of time for the ceremony and the went through length for time for ceremony, time to get from church to reception, time for photographs and mingling with guests. Time meal starts, length of time for meal, band set-up and how long the band willl play for. If your hotel is near enough to the church then your guests could be waiting around from 2:30pm to 6/6:30 which is quite a long time. Have you discovered www.weddingsonline.ie/discussion? Every wedding possibility is discussed at length there!

PMCA

12 is very early to get married and it does make it a long day.
Also, our hotel suggested later, as otherwise people will miss lunch to get to
the church on time and if your meal is too early, they'll be hungry again at
11pm. We were married in Winter and had a distance between church and reception, but 1pm was good for us.

Enjoy it either way. It IS the best day of your life.

mikeanywhere

The later the year gets its best to have the service as early as possible. I understand its a pain for people travelling as it means having to leave a lot earlier for those coming a distance but it becomes a catch 22 situation.

Also keep in mind that the service will last approx an hr, allow 20-30 mins for the line at the end greeting the guests before you go anywhere to have pictures taken. What heppens if you have to travel to the reception. Some weddings I cover can travel 40-45 mins from the church so that needs to be factored in too.

As the day goes on the light will get darker and therefore means the use of natural light is reduced a lot more. But like anything it depends on what you want. What happens if its raining too then it means having to go indoors which most likely will mean using flash too which isnt a bad thing if done right.

As PMCA says, it is YOUR day so enjoy it

GMI

Thanks for allt he advice so far folks, just a few bits to clarify...

It's to be a small wedding with just about 70 guests. The travel time from the church to the venue is only about 10 mins. The location for the photographs is about half way between the two, so its ideal really. There are very few people travelling any distance, the few who are, are travelling far enough that they would be coming a day or so beforehand anyways (overseas). Everyone else is within an hour / 90 mins max.

We're thinking 12 cos meal would then be 4.30 ish. then afters food will be provided around 11. If we go with 1, its bang on lunch time and people will be actually hungry in the church, whereas at 12, its before lunch. If we go with two, people will be hungry and driving and probably skip lunch altogether, then eat at 6.30pm and maybe not be hungry for afters food? Also, daylight, and it means bride and i are hanging around waiting nervously and panicing. We really dont know what to do. Need to decide this week though. Has anyone been married at mid-day? How did they find it? Main concern is will there be enough time to get 4 girls hair / make up done? and people drunk too early?

Thanks,

gunter

MJOR

We are getting married in Dec and it's at midday it should be perfect as our venue is and hour away and it's winter so we want some light etc

mikeanywhere

GMI wrote: »

We're thinking 12 cos meal would then be 4.30 ish.

Sorted!!!

Emerald Lass

if chruch is 10 mins from venue, and photos taken half way between, I really don't think you will need three and a half hours for photos! and also, the longer you have, the longer you take! my wedding is at 3.30 cos its a civil ceremony and registrar won't come earlier :rolleyes: meal is starting 5.30/6.00. I asked my photographer if this was enough time for photos and he said absolutely yes (and he's been doing it for 20 years so I'll take his word onit!) he said provided the photographer has it sussed out before hand where is good to take shots, knows what the couple wants, then 2 hours should be the max time needed.

12 does seem quite early, but as you pointed out, if its too early some people will be inconvenienced, if its later others will! rule number one at the wedding, you can't please everyone, so the main thing is please yourselves - its your day! IF you feel later than 12 would be too much of a rush for you, then go with 12. No matter what time it is, some poor sods will be hungry anyway! lol

Also as for this needing to let the venue know ASAP what time the ceremony is?????? you have 16 mths til the wedding - the seriously don't need to know now what time your meal will be at, don't mind them! don't worry too much, there is no rush for those details. Take your time, decide what you think is best yourself. This can be finalised up to a couple of weeks before the wedding - not 16 mths ahead! maybe wait til Sept this year, and then see what the weather/light etc is like at that time of year. Do a few trial runs, even if you are at other weddings see what your own preference is? There is no way that the hotel needs to know this right now, take it easy - there are so many other things you'll need to sort first!

Congrats on the wedding and best of luck.

GMI

To be fair to the hotel, the reason they want to know the time, is that if they book a second wedding, the other wedding party has to work around our choosen times. We booked first, its our choice.