Ceremony Start Time?

Are you hoping to do the ceremony during sunset? If not, how late do you have your venue until? Work backwards from there - if you have something like 5 hours of bar service, and assuming the bar is closed during dinner hour, cocktail hour would be at 5pm. Depending on the length of your ceremony, maybe start the ceremony around 4 or 4:30pm? Also check with your photographer as to approximately what time would provide the best light for photos, and set your ceremony start time accordingly.

I got married in Maine on October 2. Sunset was 6:20. We had a hard stop time of 9 pm, so we had our ceremony at 3:30. Cocktail hour was 4:15-5:15. Dinner was served at 6. Dancing started around 7 (plan was for dancing to begin around when it got dark—reception space had large windows overlooking ocean). I think it worked out well! We snuck out of dinner just the two of us with our photographer and got awesome sunset pics!

View Quoted Comment Oh I love that. Okay cool. I was thinking maybe 3:30 and my venue’s opinion was that it was too early

View Quoted Comment The venue has a hard stop at 10 with everyone heading out then at the latest if we have it earlier the time we are aloud to serve signature drinks can be extended 30 minutes to a min hour


I spoke with the venue and they thought 3:30 was too early but that’s the time we’d originally thought to give time for photos and such following the ceremony

I agree with Lisa to work backwards from your ending time. If your end time is 10:00, then I'd start the reception at 6:00, cocktail hour at 5:00, and ceremony at 4:00 or 4:30 (depending on how long you think your ceremony will take - 30 minutes is usually a good estimate, and assuming everything is taking place at one location).

Start whenever you want. There is no right or wrong. Think about how long you want the reception to be and work backwards. Do you want to party into the next morning or keep it short and sweet? Does your reception venue have a non negotiable starting time?

I agree with working backwards from your stop time, and it also depends if everything is at one location or separate. We're having our ceremony at 2:30pm because it's at a Catholic church and will last about an hour, so we'll be there until at least 3:30pm. The church is about a 40 min drive to our reception venue (we're in Southern California), so we're starting cocktail hour at 5pm to give guests time to get to the venue, and we have a stop time of 11pm.