Late evening wedding

View quoted message That’s what we are thinking!

I havent ever encountered this but if you are going to do this make sure you advise everyone there is no food. everyone assumes a wedding has food and i know people would be upset if there wasnt any. i would do it all back to back to back. cermoney at X time, cocktail hour at X time, entrances X time, speeches X time, first dance X time, entertainment X time etc.

View quoted message Yea I get that, we definitely want to be clear about what to expect!

I went to a wedding like this once. I don't think it's a bad idea, just let your guests know they wont be getting dinner. The one I went to the ceremony was at 6 with the reception starting at 7. Everyone was under the impression we were getting full meals. Plus they chose to mix limited food with an open bar. People were wasted by 8. I was with a group of about 6 people and we ended up leaving early because everyone was drunk and we were so hungry.

View quoted message That’s kind of what I’m leaning towards!

Your ceremony can start 6:30 if that's a good time suited to you both. The cocktails and snacks can start right after the ceremony as you get your photos done before the ceremony with your guests.

View quoted message Awesome, thanks for the rough time line!

View quoted message Thanks for the insight! I’m thinking maybe a 6:30 or 7pm start just to make it clear for people about the meal situation (obviously it’ll be on invites too). We would prefer not to do a first look but feel our pictures shouldn’t take long. We also want a brief ceremony.

Two of our friends did this and I loved it so much that we are too. We're having a Friday evening wedding without dinner. Just drinks, desert, and dancing


My loose timeline is first look and photos before, ceremony at 730, speeches at 8, cake cutting at 830, first dance around 9.

Also, my dad did this for his wedding a few years ago and it worked great. They didn’t do a first look and had about an hour I think of pictures between the ceremony and the reception so it really depends on what you want. If you are okay with a first look I would suggest that since it will allow more time for the reception. Also, obviously people will have plenty of notice so it shouldn’t be a problem for them to have supper a bit earlier one night to make it to the ceremony on time, especially since you’ll have some good at the reception.

My fiancé and I are doing an evening wedding with just snacks too.
We are doing a first look so it won’t take up time after the ceremony since it’s already going to start late.
We haven’t picked the reception space yet but it won’t be far from the ceremony. We haven’t set up a timeline yet but are looking at a ceremony at 6, which we only want to be 10-15 minutes, and then the reception starting between 7-7:30 to allow time for pictures with family. All the pictures of us and with the wedding party alone will be done beforehand when we do the first look.That’s the plan we have at the moment. I hope this helps!

View quoted message

Hmmmm... well I would for sure recommend doing a first look so that you can get all of you pictures out of the way so that your guests aren't waiting even later for the party time. So then I would say the timeline would look something like:

7:00 Ceremony, whenever that is done then add travel time (give an extra 20 for traffic), then the after party which then the rest is totally up to when you want to do things and if you are doing them at all (like first dance, parents dances, bouquet toss, garter toss, cutting the cake, and send off).

We did speeches during supper and then went into the first dance followed directly by the parents dances, and then gave a few dances in between that before doing the bouquet toss and garter toss. We didn't do a cake cutting though since we had a korovai. And then we were at our venue the whole weekend so we had guests leave at 1amish and we stayed up till at least 2, then some stayed up till like 4am (my DH...), and woke up at around 9am to pack everything up. If you need to clean up same day then you will have to consider that in the timeline too.

View quoted message If we did the ceremony at 7pm, what do you think a reasonable timeline for the rest of the evening would be?
We are getting married across the province and have several other attendees coming from out of town, so Saturday is the best day for us. We are using 2 venues to save on a bit of cost, and planning to have a later wedding.

Didn't do this for mine and haven't been to one like this - but I've heard of others doing this and I am 100% on board with it!!!

If I were a guest I would say to keep in mind that they will need to have supper which is usually around 5-6ish so I would say a safe ceremony start time would be around 7. This also means that if you aren't stuck on having the date you have in your bio you could try for a Friday wedding and save on some costs potentially?