late morning/ early afternoon wedding

[Cynthia]

Hi Ladies,

I have always been interested in a late morning or early afternoon wedding but there doesn''t seem to be much info online on how to make this work.

For the am, I thought about a nice brunch after the wedding following by a party later in the evening. (not sure where though).

My second choice is to have a 7 pm wedding followed but the Hors d’ oeuvre reception. I thought that it would be nice for me to have an early supper with my family and friends before getting ready. I don''t really know.

Anyone out there have any ideas or have any experiences that might help me out.

tks

Cindy

 

[honeynut]

What exactly are you going for? Is it that you would prefer to avoid a dinner reception? If so, you could do a late morning wedding or early afternoon wedding with afternoon tea as your reception, that would be lovely! You could do a brunch too after a morning wedding... you could also do the wedding early and a late-night reception if you 'marketed' it well and did not have any guests coming out just for the wedding because then you'd leave them with the entire day between ceremony and reception, and nothing to do... not very polite. If you do know that all your guests are locals, maybe a morning wedding with an 8PM reception would be very chic! You could play funky lounge or house music, serve a signature martini, and pass some hors d'oeuvres at 10PM and some sweets at midnight.

 

[njc]

I dont know how big/small or simple/over-the-top you would like to go on your wedding, but this is my personal experience with a morning wedding.

One of my friends just got married in Oct at 11am. Seemed like a reasonable time until you started to think about hair and photos, breakfast, travel times etc. We needed to be at the church by 10. Most hair salons didnt open until 830/9 and we needed 30 min travel time. Me and another bridesmaid ended up going to a woman who worked out of her home at 7am to get our hair done, which took 2 1/2 hours. The grooms family and attendants had to be at the church by 9am so they could take some of the pictures before the ceremony.

So, even an 11am wedding means getting up really early for everyone (i was up at 530, a full hour earlier than i wake up for work!). And if you plan on doing things like hair or make-up it can be difficult to find someone that can do it at 8am. Also, there was no time for things like "oh no i chipped my nail polish" (which did happen to the bride). And im pretty sure everyone passed out from exhaustion by 6pm (i know i did!).

IMHO, there was not a part of the day i felt relaxed. We had a schedule and not much room for being late or errors. The bride realized her cathedral length veil, which was to serve as her train, was inside her parents locked house. No one had keys and there wasnt any time to get keys. She was willing to break a window and climb in herself (dress and all) to get it, but her dad wasnt too keen on the idea and they were already running late, so she had to go without her $150 veil. But like i said, if you want this to be a casual affair to begin with, it wouldnt be so bad, but this was a full on to-do.

Good luck and i dont mean to scare you away, just letting you know some of the details we didnt run into until like a month before the big day!

 

[Cynthia]

Thank you for comments about your experiences. This is exactly what I was looking for. I didn''t take into account hair appts, etc. Guess these are things that get overlooked sometimes in the early stages.

After more thought and discussion, it appears that a morning wedding wouldn''t fly. We have ppl coming from out of town and the time span would be too long for them. It looks like an evening wedding followed by some sort of danseless reception.

I loved the martini idea. These are the cute personalized ideas that I am intersted in.

Does anyone know how to determine the amount of Hors d’ oeuvres needed per person or drinks? Any sites for the out there for those self-catering ?

tks

 

[MelissaSue]

i''m confused by the whole concept in general.. because EVERYONE i know or have EVER known.. has their wedding in the afternoon and reception in the evening, which is why I am always confused by the formality of an "Afternoon"/"Evening" wedding since mine is going to be, and every other wedding i''ve been to.. has been both.

For instance.. our church won''t let us have the ceremony any later than 1:30 (We''re gonna try to get it pushed back til 2 since we''re not having a mass).. but.. there is NO WAY I will have my reception start before 5pm. I''d really like it to start at 6.. but i don''t think my parents will stand for any more of a gap than that. People will just have to find something to do. The only exceptions I have seen to this are when the ceremony was at the same place as the reception so that the ceremony was at like 4 and the reception just sort of followed immediately after.

 

[SJS1234]

My future fiance and I have discussed this at some length already, and had planned on an afternoon wedding -- around 2pm, with light food and cocktails to follow for a couple of hours (ceremony harpist would continue to play), then break out for a "rest" and then take everyone out for a really nice dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. Granted, we are only planning on 50-60 people total (small wedding -- second for both of us)....but just an idea. The restaurant would have a separate room for us, decorated and I would create my own menu (we know the manager at the restaurant), etc. Another thing we thought about though was to still do the afternoon wedding and cocktails, then have a reception/party at a friend''s house (nice, big enough -- nice yard, etc.)......

I agree about avoiding the mornings!! Not enough time!! and what if you wake up with puffy eyes! need time to de-swell!! (at least that was my thought!)

Most weddings I have been to are in the evening, with reception immediately following.
The most fabulous wedding EVER though, was my friends in France. 3pm wedding, cocktails and hors d’oeuvres for a couple of hours afterwards (at the bride''s parents beautiful home) -- including a balloon release.....then a bus took us all to a castle for the reception (about 45 minutes away), where we spent the ENTIRE NIGHT alternating menu courses with disco and dancing! Seriously, the bus picked us back up at 6am! CRAZY! my understanding is that this is pretty typical for France. It was fabulous. sigh....