Bride to be lost

Plan for a friday or sunday they are way cheaper. many halls have a smaller room you can do your ceremony in and then have the reception right after. i would do around 3pm depending how long your ceremony is and then have pictures right after and do cocktail hour around 530 and then reception to start at 630

The venue you choose should give you a lot of guidance on this, since they will likely have a time when you can first start setting up if its an evening thing and they have done this before. For example, my venue will let us start setting up at 2:30 and we have the venue until 1 am. I'm getting married at a church, then on to the venue, so my exact timeline will be different from yours.

Think about what you want to accomplish during the day and how long each thing will be. Ceremonies can range in time from 15 mins to an hour depending. Mine will be ~ 30 minutes. Then your family will want the chance to congratulate you right away and mingle a bit (maybe 30 mins?). If you want photos taken between the ceremony and reception, then you should probably budget ~1 hour for this I think (cocktail hour!). Think about what time you would like everyone to start dinner - maybe work backwards from here?

Hope this kind of helps!

The venue being the main location for the wedding and reception may allow you to choose the ceremony time for the elderly to come out and enjoy an early start and leave in the later afternoon than staying late night. Saturday is the most expensive day to choose as its popular and Friday for some venues. Once you have chosen the venue, then start planning the big vendors to have your team build together and focus on the details and décor colour and style fitting your theme or evening setting.

Because we’re doing a Sunday night in late fall, we managed to get off-season pricing on a very nice wedding package. If you’re savvy about timing, you can get more for less. It mainly depends on where and when.

View quoted message I went to a 4 o'clock Friday wedding. The ceremony was at 4, photos followed that, and then we ate around 530/6. I remember being home at a decent time, some people stayed later but all the important stuff happened by 9ish (cake, bouquet, dances, speeches etc).

View quoted message The plan is a Friday for sure, I'm just thinking for our older relatives who may not want to be out late, or the little ones who may struggle to stay up. My fiance would prefer a north american menu (steak etc) but I feel like that's a dinner (5/6pm) meal. Would that be too late? (Dancing desert and drinks would still be after)

You still have lots of options, a Friday evening, or a Sunday brunch can both save you money vs a Saturday. With kids involved I would think early evening or afternoon would be best.