One of our biggest issues to date has been the time between our ceremony and our reception. Since we are having a Catholic ceremony, the latest start time for the ceremony at the church is 4.5 hours before our banquet dinner. As guests at a wedding a few months ago, Mr. Toucan and I didn’t enjoy having nothing to do for about 3 hours, so we didn’t want to do the same thing to our guests.
So, what to do?
Our tentative solution so far:
1. Since only Mr. Toucan is Catholic, and I am not, we will not be having a full Catholic mass. We will try to convince the church to hold our ceremony half an hour later, since our ceremony will be shorter.
2. Have a receiving line
3. We will ask our guests to stick around the church for some group photos.
4. We will hold our tea ceremony at the restaurant 2 hours before the banquet and invite guests to come watch if they would like, plus
5. Hold a cocktail hour 1 hour prior to the banquet, and hire cocktail musicians to entertain the guests.
After implementing points 1 to 5, and with the ceremony site being about a 30 minute drive from our reception site, I’m estimating that there won’t be really much of a time gap.
How much time do you have in between your ceremony and reception? How long is too long? Have any additional tips on how to burn some time?
| Visit our sister sites | Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Fertile Thoughts Infertility Support |

| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 |
Latest Gallery Pics