Help with wedding day of schedule! (2pm ceremony, 2 locations, no first look)

Are you going somewhere to take photos ? That could help us determine how much travel time is needed in between

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Nope! The photos will be taken in a field right next to the church. So the only travel time is the 30 minutes to get to the reception from the church and then the 30 minutes to get to the church in the morning from our getting ready spot.

What are people doing for the time in between the ceremony and cocktail hour?

You’d have to leave for church at 115 at latest. How important are pics getting ready? Ask your photographer how long for that. I think you could do pictures with sparklers but not necessarily the send off. I’m not quite sure why you wouldn’t attend your own cocktail hour since theirs such a larger gap in between?

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To help avoid guests getting bored we plan to give a few recommendations with our invites of places to go between the ceremony and reception. The reception is in a cute lake town with a lot of fun shops, bars, and restaurants people can eat drinks and apps at if they'd like. Because the drive to the reception is a half hour, the gap is really only about 2 hours. However I might still consider moving up cocktail hour if there is enough time for photo and video in that gap!

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Pics getting ready are super important to me! Figuring out how these take is a lot of what I’m trying to determine. And the large gap is to accommodate for all the photo and video Since we won’t get any because we aren’t doing a first look. I honestly don’t know how long these usually take so that’s why I over estimated the time and was just looking for advice of what others have done. If it is too much time we might just move up cocktail hour to 4 and the reception to 5!

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Talk to your photographer about timing. And account for a little more travel time to get set up etc.

I would talk to the photographer/videographer, but I think I'd have them there from 11 to 9. Then they'll have 2 hours of getting ready pics, you can leave at 1:00 to go to the ceremony, you'll have time after the ceremony for pictures and to travel back, and then the reception. You can do an early send-off like you said and they can leave at 9. Then it'll still be dark enough at 8:30 to do a sparkler send off since you're a summer wedding.

Your day is almost exactly like mine was. We had our photographer all day, no time restraints. They were there for the last of the getting ready at the salon until we left. They were there for 12.5 hrs
I started hair and make up at 8am at a salon. We drove to the reception venue where we got dressed and I took pictures with my mom, bridal party, and the photographer got some detail shots.
Then we left for the church, 25-30 min away. The photographer got there first and did pictures of the groom with his bridal party and family. Then he did pictures of me and my family. 2:30 ceremony. We started 5 min late it lasted 25 minutes. We did family pictures with me and my husband after the ceremony followed by pictures with the bridal party and then bride and groom portraits. While we were taking pictures our guests headed over to the reception site. We started cocktail hr about 3:45. We made it to cocktail hr around 4:30. My husband hung out but I got distracted and worried about stuff. We were introduced a few minutes after 5. First dance, my dads speech and then the buffet started right after. We didn’t do a send off because most of our guests were gone by the end of the night. We had actually scheduled to end at 9, but by 8:45 everyone but parents and bridal party were gone. So we wrapped it up. You can probably do the send off just before your photographer is scheduled to leave as many older guests may be getting ready to leave then anyway.

Other than weddings with the reception at the church, the only time I’ve actually seen an official sendoff was when the couple left and came back. There may have been a few where I didn’t know many of the guests and left early myself. But I don’t think it would confuse your guests if you did a send off, drove around a bit and then rejoined the party.

I’m having a 2 o’clock ceremony as well, but my reception is onsite and directly after the wedding, but we’re doing send off around 5:30/6.

How many bridesmaids? Are your professionals doing their looks as well?

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That’s actually a really good idea! I think that should allow enough time at the beginning and end of the day for those shots I wanted.

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Thanks for the idea! I’m definitely playing around with the idea of either doing a small send off with bridal party partway through reception or just waiting till the end with whoever is left. For us it’s really about how long we have photo and video for because we don’t get all day, just 10 hours.

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The couple left and came back? I’ve never heard of that before. But if it wasn’t too confusing it could be a cool idea! It may also give older family a chance to leave if they would like to before more dancing begins.

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I have 7 bridesmaids and we haven’t figured it out 100% yet, but my guess is that half will want their look done by a professional and others will likely do it themselves.

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I'm glad it was helpful!

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Yes, I was intrigued by it, but they also wanted to help clean up and whatnot.

I agree with it feeling like good timing for some to leave. There may be some that want to see you off but not stay all night. It could also be almost like a separation between official/formal reception (official dances, cake cutting, tosses) and after party of just dancing and fun.

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Love this idea!