HOW TO LAY THE TIMELINE FOR YOUR WEDDING DAY REGARDING

 YOUR CEREMONY START TIMES, END TIMES AND DURATIONS

One of the most common puzzles couples often grapple with when it comes to planning their wedding day and timeline at their venue is what is the best time and duration to start their ceremony and reception.

To help couples with these questions, I did a bit of diving into data on the weddings I photographed this year.  The data from a sample of 23 weddings is included below to help bring clarity and guidance on this topic.

Keep in mind that every venue has different rules, restrictions, or parameters regarding what time they commonly start ceremonies, receptions and end them etc. so you may have to work around the parameters of the venue.  This is usually included or layout out in their packages.

With all said, let us dive into this topic of discussion.

The wedding at a venue often involves a ceremony followed by a cocktail hour and then formal reception.  A venue will commonly lump in a cocktail hour and reception together and call it a reception.  For discussion purposes in this article, I will separate them into different segments.

CEREMONY START TIME AND DURATION

I generally recommend 30 minutes of time for a standard (non- church) ceremony at the venue. Not that a ceremony takes 30 minutes.  Most are 15 to 20 minutes but often venues will start the ceremony late, or if waiting for guests etc., so budgeting 30 minutes overall is a good plan.

A one-hour cocktail hour follows the ceremony.  Portraits of the bride/groom, wedding party and family are often done at this time. 

After the cocktail hour follows the formal part of the reception.

So, when is a good time to start the ceremony?  Keeping in mind that the ceremony duration is about 30 minutes, followed by a cocktail hour which takes an hour.  The goal is to end that with a target of dinner time!  Too early a ceremony and people are not hungry for dinner.  Too late a ceremony and dinners can start at 7 pm or later and your guests are hungry.  You also may want to factor in the daylight for photos during the cocktail hour which can be an issue starting in November after daylight savings kicks in.  You want to avoid taking photos in the dark if possible.  Venues often do not factor photos time and daylight availability when putting their packages and timelines together.  They mainly follow the clocks for dinner and not the amount of daylight.

So, let us look at the data sampled of 23 weddings for ceremony start times.

11 weddings stared their ceremony at 4pm

4 weddings started their ceremony at 5pm

2 weddings started at 3pm and 4:30 pm

1 wedding started at 11 am (Sunday wedding) 12:30pm, 1 pm, 3:30 pm.

As you can see, most wedding ceremony start at 4pm with a cocktail hour from 4:30pm to 5:30pm and formal part of the reception starting at 5:30pm with dinner served around 6pm

See graph below

RECEPTION END TIME

The next part of the puzzle to solve is what time should your reception end.  Once again this may all be dependent on the venue.  Some venues have later end times.  Some venues are under noise ordnances to finish by a certain time etc.  You want to factor in the age of your guests.  Do they have kids etc.?  How much do they like to party, stay out late etc.?  Guests that are elderly or people with children etc. can start leaving a reception as early as 9pm.  At around 10pm another exodus of guests can occur.  The longer you end the reception the less likely you will have a full dance floor and it can be quite uncomfortable to have wedding go on late but with very few people remaining.  Also does the bride and groom like dancing or being the center of attention or are they more quiet and reserved?  At some weddings the guests will stay to 11pm and then do an after party.  It all depends on your group.

Let us take a look at the data below to see when most people end their wedding reception.

Of 23 weddings sampled here is the results

9 weddings ended at 10pm

5 weddings ended at 9:30pm

2 weddings ended at 9pm, 10:30 pm and 11pm.

1 wedding went to 12 midnight

1 wedding ended at 6pm

1 wedding ended at 4pm.

Keep in mind Sunday weddings often start earlier and end earlier which is included in this data for one wedding.

So, the most popular time to end a wedding is 10pm followed by 9:30pm

See graph below

RECEPTION DURATION

The last piece of the puzzle is how long should your reception be?

The average reception time is 4 hours with 4.5 hours being the next common duration. They can be as short as 3.5 hour and as long as 5.5. hours.  If you stick with the 4-to-4.5-hour range, you should be in good shape. 

Depending on the size of your guest count.  How long it takes the venue to get food served to guests (this can be an issue for some venues) how many toasts you have, does the bride and groom want to go around to each table and say hi (this can take over an hour) can all be ways to gauge how long to make your reception.

Out of 23 weddings sampled the duration is as follows

11 weddings had a 4-hour reception duration

7 weddings had 4.5-hour reception duration

3 weddings had a 3.5-hour reception duration

1 wedding had a 5-hour duration

1 wedding had a 5.5-hour duration.

See graph below

PUTTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER 

Often a venue will provide a package for example of a 6-hour block of time starting at the ceremony and going to the end of the reception.  The venue may not provide flexibility in the timing.  If they do you however, you can move this block of time up or back depending on the factors I mentioned above such as availability of daylight for photos, ceremony temperature during that part of the day, time for first look and portraits before the ceremony, travel time in traffic, ending the reception at a time that works for your guests and activity level of your group etc.     

I hope this tutorial helps take out some of the mystery and puzzle of figuring out your wedding timeline regarding your ceremony and reception start and end time and duration.

CHURCH CEREMONY START TIME AND DURATION

If your wedding ceremony takes place at a church separate from the venue, then it will follow a different timeline which we will talk about next.

A standard Catholic wedding church ceremony I budget 1 hour for.  This is a good amount of time for a full catholic mass.  If there is a receiving line after the ceremony I would budget about 20 minutes for the that.  If portraits are to be done at the alter or outside the church etc. budget around 30 minutes depending on the number of groups and portraits you want. The next thing to factor in is time to travel to your venue.  Backtrack the time from your cocktail hour to best determine your ceremony time.  I have done things like portraits at the venue before the cocktail hour or portraits at a local park, vineyard etc. in place of the venue etc. 

Check with your church to determine what time slots are available for ceremonies on your wedding day and ask what time you have to be out of the church to make sure there is time for portraits after the ceremony if desired.  Some churches will have a mass following your wedding etc. and will ask that you leave the church by a set time.

Ceremony and reception start times, end times and duration video