chirawan's Blue wedding

My ceremony starts at 5pm and the reception starts at 6pm and will go until at least 11pm.  The venues are only 3-5 minutes from each other and our ceremony will last 20-30 minutes. How long is your ceremony? Will you be serving dinner? Will there be dancing? I think typically, if there is a cocktail hour, dinner, and dancing, then you should leave 4-5 hours just for that portion. You also have to take pictures after the ceremony into account. My advice, I think you should extend your time. Four hours seems like a long time, but it really isn't that long.

The ceremony will be short, 20 minutes sounds about right. We'll most likely be serving a picnic style lunch or BBQ...depending on the location. Probably no dancing, but I will need to factor in time for toasts, games, and possibly speeches. Four hours SEEMS like enough, but you're probably right. I just worry about cost! Reserving four hours will eat my entire budget.

Going off what you described, it sounds really fun by the way, I think 4 hours might very well work. Because it's picnic style and in the same location you should be fine, as long as you don't take a VERY long time with pictures after the ceremony.

Maybe, if you wanted to keep the party going longer and not spend a lot of money, you could meet some place else afterwards and just hang out (i.e. hotel, bar, someone's house, etc.). I just went to my cousins wedding, which was an afternoon/early evening ceremony and reception, where we all went to the hotel bar and pool and just hung out there for the rest of the night. We had a great time!!!

May I just say what you have planned for your wedding sounds really fun!  If you're trying to keep it down to 4 hours maybe try taking some pictures (family ones, ones with bridesmaids, etc.) before the ceremony.  I know some people don't like the idea of that, but it is a way to have less to take in between the ceremony and the after party and would leave more time for partying it up!

Pictures before the wedding would definately work, especially since I know I'm going to cry and mess up my makeup. It'll be happy tears, of course.

Oh,oh, my Amanda!
I loveth your graphics! I thought 4 hours would be long enough...until I actually talked to some people.  If you think 4 hours will be good enough for you guys, go with it.  We're going to have dancing and so on at ours, so we've booked 12 hours.  BUT--that includes the ceremony, set up and take down and reception.  Also, ours is only $175 with a $100 deposit for the 12 hours.

The only advice to you is this: At my wedding, and every other wedding i've been to, EATING TAKES FOREVER. Time that each person takes to eat may not be bad, but in a group people take a LONG. TIME. They chit chat, and clink glasses, and visit other peoples tables (or blankets or whatever). We had 65, and it took them TWO HOURS to eat.

I wanted to book the reception site for 4 hours, but if you do that then EVERYTHING has to happen between those times. That includes any clean up and set up that isn't coming directly from them. So I couldn't have the DJ set up before, or a florist. And for every 15 minutes I go over they'll charge for 1 hour. So you probably want to give yourself an hour cushion time on either end. It's better than getting yelled at and having a bunch of overage fees. Also talk with the site and see if you can get your contract to include time for the people to come in and set up before the event. Then you might only have to pay for one extra hour or half hour for clean up.

TALK TO YOUR SITE AND DISCUSS IT WITH YOUR FIANCE! Two heads are better than one in a situation like this.