I'm having a dilema with the timing of the ceremony and reception. My fiance and I are getting married in my hometown, in the Catholic Church I grew up going to. The church is extremely meaningful to me, and I've always dreamed of being married in it. It's the main reason we decided to have the wedding in my hometown (I don't live there anymore). Here's the problem though. Wedding ceremonies are only held on Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. That's it. There's no way around this. The church makes no exceptions. It's just something we have to accept and work with.
We don't like this because of the timing with the reception. We would much rather have a later reception, so we were thinking of maybe planning an activity in the middle. Here are our reasons for wanting to have a break/later reception:
1. The break would give us more time to get the ceremony flowers that are being used at the reception also to the reception venue.
2. About 1/4 of my guests live in the EXTREMELY SMALL town where the wedding is, and their homes are all within 10 minutes of both the ceremony and reception location. So if they didn't want to participate in the activity and instead wanted to go home, it wouldn't be an issue, because home is right around the corner.
3. The other 3/4 of my guests will be coming from out of town (3-4 hour car drives) With the exception of our wedding party, mosts of our guests will be coming that morning and staying that night in the hotel where I've booked rooms. Having a break would enable our out of town guests to check into their rooms between the ceremony and reception (check-in is at 3:00).
4. Our out of town guests could also use that time Relaxing, unpacking, showering, napoing, etc back in their hotel rooms before the reception begins. I personally hate long car rides and feel tired and gross after them, so if I was a guest, I would love having the time to take a nap and shower before the big party.
5. We want to have a plated dinner reception, because the least we can do for our out-of-town guests if provide them with a nice, big plated meal. But we think that serving a heavy meal like this at 3 p.m. is extremely too early.
6. If the reception started at 2:00 and was over by 7:00 -what would all of my out of town guests do? There is nothing in this small town to do - it's not like they can just "go out" and enjoy the nightlife - there is nothing like that. And we don't have enough money in the budget to plan something for later in the evening. If the reception started at 4:00 or 5:00, it would go until 9:00 or 10:00, so we would entertaining them for most of the evening.
Not all of the guests will want to use the time going back home, or checking into their hotel, showering, and napping, and we know this. Some will be irritated with the break and expect us to have something planned for them. There are some neat, historical things to do in this town (i.e. a history house, underground revolutionary war tunnels, an antique steam engine train, etc). We were thinking of planning something to do from 2:30-4:30 (if ceremony was over at 2:00 and reception began at 5:00), like perhaps a group tour of the tunnels (very inexpensive) topped off with some lemonade and finger sandwhiches at a tiny local restaurant. None of my out of town guests have been to my hometown.
What are your thoughts on this? I know that you're "supposed" to have the reception immediately after the wedding, but in our case it just doesn't seem practical.
If we decided to do the (optional, of course) planned activity in the middle, how would I go about explaining this in the invitation? Would I just list it on the reception card, and then include a space on the response card for the guests to indicate whether or not they would be participating? And would it be OK if the bride and groom didn't attend the activity?
Wow, sorry I just wrote a book:) Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Etiquette Now
WEDDING ETIQUETTE EXPERT
Aug 28, 2005, 7:06 PM
Post #2 of 2
(2419 views)
Re: [jbella130] Break between ceremony and reception?!?!
[In reply to]
Dear Needs a Break,
It seems best to always plan the reception directly after the wedding, but it isn't possible at times.
Your plan will work and it would be fine as long as your wedding and reception is not too formal. Some of your guests will not want to go to their rooms to change for the reception.
You could include the activity information in your save the date cards and as an enclosure in your invitations. You could also include a line on your response card for these.
Thank you for considering your guest's needs during your planning process. This is extremely considerate of you.
Break between ceremony and reception?!?!
