8Pm Ceremony time too late?

I think it really depends on who your guests are. If they are mostly older adults then yes, I think it's too late. For me personally, it's definitely too late, but my FH and I are early birds and usually in bed by 9:30 - 10. But, we're going the opposite direction and having a sunrise wedding to start at 7:15 a.m. (the majority of our guests are also early birds).

You can call it a moonlight ceremony? Join us by the light of the moon as we celebrate our wedding with family and friends....

I agree, it depends on your guests. If it is a young crowd/people who like to party for the most part, that’s fine. For people on the older or more boring (me) side, that would be pretty late - that means dinner would be served around 10:30 PM.

I’d be inclined to do things in a different order - I’d start with cocktail hour and then have a 9pm ceremony and go straight into dinner from that. You’d probably need some decently heavy apps for cocktail hour but that would hold people over until dinner was served.

Are you having a full dinner? I personally do not usually eat anything after about 8pm so that could have some impact on guests. And as some of the other comments mentioned, I'm an early bird so staying out that late would be a challenge. In that situation I would probably stay for the ceremony and maybe a very brief time at the cocktail hour.

We're having a formal evening wedding so our ceremony starts at 7pm. Everyone we know stays up late and if not its only one day and on a long weekend so I don't see the problem.

I’m not sure it would make sense to have cocktail hour and serve a full dinner as part of your reception given the start time. People won’t be eating dinner till 10pm, which seems pretty late. Like others said it would depend on your crowd though. If it’s lots of younger people that stay out late I don’t think it’s too too late but I would treat it more as a cocktail party and then dancing rather than a full formal reception if it were me. Or could you skip cocktail hour, go straight to dinner and then have the cocktail hour food as a late night snack?

As others have said, I think it's a know your crowd kind of thing. I also see that your date is a Friday. I know I am usually wiped by the end of the work week, so I don't know if I'd survive that late lol. My husband, who gets up at 4:30am for work definitely would not.

Oh yikes, that is late. I would probably leave around 11:30/12 if I were invited. A lot of weddings I've been to have after parties, which I don't think would be possible with a 1:30 end time. Are you okay with potentially a lot of guests leaving early?

It definitely depends on the crowd your having, but personally for me, it's way too late for me and my fiancee, and I feel you might also have to take into account the fact that people will probably have to get ready for work the next day. For example, my work starts at 4:00 am in the morning, and if I was invited to this wedding there's a huge chance that I'm leaving right after the ceremony ends.

An 8:00 pm wedding is pretty late. I don't see many older people attending a wedding that late, but if you have a mostly younger crowd attending, I think you would be fine. I also don't think you would need to serve a full dinner. Most people will not want to eat that late. An open bar and some heavy apps throughout the night would be nice.

That's really late, especially for a full meal after.

My brother and his wife did 8-1:30. It worked out okay. Their venue was attached to the hotel, so guests could leave when they wanted to (and most older guests did leave right after dinner was served). The bridal party was absolutely exhausted since we'd started getting ready early in the morning, but for the most part, people were still happy and partying the whole time.

I think it is a bit late to start, but if I was invited to a wedding with this timeline I would need to take a nap first (I'm in bed by 9:30 most nights)... but that would be ok if I had advance notice. I do think it is a little late to be eating a full meal, but again if it was all communicated well in advance I don't see why I couldn't adapt.

I like the idea of a later in the evening wedding. My ceremony starts mid afternoon and I wish I would have scheduled it for 2 hours later. My culture likes to dance and party so we are paying for an extra hour or two.

If most of your guests are night owls I don't see a problem. But that is super late to be serving a full meal though.

I think that's pretty late. By 9:30pm I'd be starving, and then definitely wanting to be home in bed by midnight, especially on a Friday where I presumably would've been up early for work that day. On a Saturday (when I was able to sleep in) I'd be able to be up and having fun later.

Maybe you could make it a cake and punch reception, where you just serve desserts, late night snacks and drinks, instead of a full meal? That would honestly save you a ton of money too. I know I would definitely be eating a full dinner before attending an 8pm ceremony lol. You could do:

Ceremony: 8-8:30

Cocktail hour: 8:30-9:30

Reception: start at 9:30, cut the cake at 10, and then start dancing right after that (at like 10:30, probably).

Since you wouldn't be serving a full meal, you'd be able to start the dancing part of your reception earlier, and then people can just leave as they want to. I'm sure some will stay until 1:30 but expect people to taper out around midnight.

Hey Kimberly! I wonder if you could find a different location for your ceremony so that you could start the reception right at 8:00. Ceremony could begin at 6:30 which seems like a standard time.

We are starting our ceremony at 7pm and are telling people to eat ahead of time. The plan is to serve snacks, desert, and drinks. Our venue is not a good set-up for a seated meal, so I decided to start later to avoid the issue. I think as long as you can come up with a timeline that works for you to fit in all of the “events” that you would like to have happen, then it is fine. I do think a full dinner is probably tough that late though.

It really depends on your guest list. A bunch of older adults, probably too late. A younger crowd, probably okay.

I'm only 29, but that would be way too late for me- I mean...I passed out at 8:30pm last night, if I was a guest I would have missed your entire ceremony haha!