Start time for church wedding?

Does the church have required times they will perform a wedding or are they flexible? How long is the ceremony?


If you walk down the aisle at 3 and the ceremony is 39 minutes, that puts you at 3:30. Figure 10-20 minutes to dismiss the rows so you can greet all guests (cuts out unnecessary time for table visits at the reception which 5 mins per table turns into over an hour and some tables are not even spoken to). 20-30 minutes for post ceremony shots (assuming you do the majority before the ceremony). That puts you at just after 4:15. How far away is reception in traffic? There should not be any gap whatsoever between venues beyond driving time taking traffic into account. What time does that give you? Do you plan to attend all of cocktail hour (one of the major selling points behind all pictures taken before the ceremony) or just a few minutes?
If the ceremony is an hour as many church services are, push your timeline above forward by 30 minutes.

Assuming your ceremony lasts 30 minutes and the drive to the reception location is another 30 minutes, that means your guests are going to have a 2.5 hr gap between ceremony and reception. I would definitely eliminate that gap! You don’t want your guests standing around waiting or having to find something to do in between that time. Ideally, your reception flows right into cocktail hour with no gap time in between.

View Quoted Comment Thanks for the response! The church only has set times. The only other time would be 1pm which I think would be too early for me and the bridesmaids to be ready by and it would also leave a huge gap between venues. The ceremony would most likely be an hour

View Quoted Comment I agree about the gap. Unfortunate, my church does not have any later times. But I also would like a bit of gap for time to take photos at the church and venue. I’m unsure if I will even have enough time to do that if I get stuck talking to people after the church!

View Quoted Comment The cocktail hour was created for this exact purpose- it’s to entertain your guests while you take photos. That’s why you are supposed to start cocktail hour immediately after your ceremony- so that your guests are properly hosted while you take photos.