It happens a lot, and I hate it. It’s one thing if it’s a wedding in the town in which I live and I can go home, but it’s usually somewhere else. If I don’t know them well I don’t want to go to their relative’s house in between, but most of the time there is nowhere to go. They expect you to find some way to kill time yourself.
I made sure when I got married that we had the ceremony and a reception immediately following. I think it’s rude to do otherwise. You might want to choose just the ceremony or just the reception to save yourself some grief.
I hate long wait times, my girlfriend’s dad had a wedding at 11:00AM and took under half an hour. People were expected to be at the wedding at least 30-45 minutes in advance so pictures could be taken before the wedding. The reception? 6:30PM. It was annoying having to drive back to where we stayed the night before (about a 30 minute drive) to change clothes, because there was no way I was dicking around in fancy wedding duds for 7 hours.
I think 4 hours is bad, but not as bad as it could be.
Well, I actually had to go back and check my e-mails from 2009 to be sure (yah, I should probably clean out my ‘sent’ folder once and a while) and hubby and I had a 3.5 hour delay between beginning of the ceremony and beginning of the reception.
Ceremony started at 2:00 PM, cocktails at the reception started at 5:30 PM. So, I suppose we’re classless buffoons that shouldn’t be allowed out in polite company; however, we did give people lots of notice about the delay, offered suggestions for activities - we got married in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains - so nature walks, trips to the small town for ice cream, shopping in the quaint nearby village, etc., and my father was dying from cancer at the time so I needed to have enough of a break for him to have a nap between walking me down the aisle and attending the reception.
I think everyone had a nice time; however, I’m sure on a message board somewhere at least one of my guests is talking about what a nasty hag I am for having such a delay. Eh. I’ll still sleep ok at night.
We did our pictures before the wedding deliberately to avoid this. I understand why some people deal with the whole “bad luck” thing or want the first glimpse of the wedding dress to be down the aisle but it’s really a pain for all.
Sounds like they’ve made arrangements for some entertainment to be available at least but in your situation I’d just make my own plans and see a movie or read a book in a coffee shop instead.
My wife and I attended the wedding of one of her college roomies about a year before our own wedding. They had something like 3 hours between the wedding and the reception. There were ‘refreshments back at the house’ in between, but it really felt like we were in some sort of limbo, trying to make chitchat with people that I hardly knew for all that time. I was worn out well before the actual reception began. If we’d had any sense we would have gone back to the hotel room in between.
We’d also been to a few ‘reception following the ceremony’ weddings at about that time, where they opened the reception hall and let the guests in when they arrived from the wedding, but didn’t really start putting out food or drink, playing music, etc. until the wedding party finally arrived after the obligatory photo shoot.
After experiencing all of this, my wife and I decided we would do our wedding photos before the ceremony. We took only a few pix at the chapel - stuff like photos with the rings and the marriage license - before heading over in the limo. Our guests got to the reception hall maybe 5-10 minutes ahead of us.
In this day and age, unless one comes from an extremely conservative and traditional family, there’s really no reason on earth to not do the photo shoots before the ceremony, unless you’ve got a big window of time anyway between when you could book the chapel and when you could book the reception hall.
Huh, it’s funny, but thinking of recent weddings I’ve been to I can’t really think exactly how much time would’ve been between wedding and reception.
I think often it’s wedding, then chatting, small snacks, cake, champagne often still at church/venue. Some pictures taken at pretty church while guests are happy there. Then all leave for second venue, this takes ages because nobody can walk properly in their shoes, or knows where the next place is. Then more drinks and chatting and pictures there, possibly outside. Then going in to the venue for food & after a party.
I never even really noticed it, but I suppose sometimes it takes a while, yes. I just enjoy myself so it never bothered me.
Going to a whole different place for pictured :eek: ridiculous! I’d never even heard of that! It’s this stupid obsession people have with photographs: they forget to actually live life and just want to have the pictures instead. Last wedding I went to the only other location the couple used for a pic was on the way to the other venue. It was in the hills and there was a signpost that had both their hometowns on it, pointing in opposite directions.
I think it just seems like a big chore because you aren’t really looking forward to seeing all these people. Can’t you just bring a random friend as a date so you can get drunk together? It does sound like you are invited to the house for drinks, so I think you should go.
I just don’t see the point. You’re basically having a miniature reception before the reception. I am also mostly familiar with the variety where the reception begins right after the wedding–and, if it’s at a church, that’s even going to be on the same campus. Yes, the bride and groom take an hour or two to join in, but that’s expected.
An activity would be something other than mingling.
I am to attend a friend’s wedding next week, and this will be the second one in 2 years (not the same friend) that the wedding will be held at the Reception Hall itself (a Catering Establishment - no church). These both are/were Catholic weddings, reception more or less begins immediately after the ceremony, no waiting.
Perhaps the wave of the future (or at least the present?)
The point probably depends on customs/preferences of the families involved in the wedding- my family likes to mingle with each other. They like to mingle so much than about 80 of us have been spending three days at a resort every June for the last few years. They’ll mingle for three hours between ceremony and the reception at some conveniently located relative’s home , they’ll mingle for 4-7 hours at the reception itself, and if it’s a 4 hour reception, a large group is likely to go to a bar afterwards. My husband’s family is the same way , except for the trip to the bar afterwards.
Friends- well, most of the friends lived close enough to go home between the ceremony and reception. Plenty of them did ,as I did for my first cousins’ weddings (the churches were within 15 minutes of my house). I’d guess that some who lived further skipped the ceremony. I can understand how the OP and my more distant friends would not be comfortable spending a few hours mingling at some relatives house, but I would hope that they could understand why I might choose to please the 200 relatives rather than the 5 or 10 friends who were neither local nor coming from far enough away to have a local hotel room.
It’s what we’re doing. Not a religious service, but it’s in the same building as the reception. We’ll have a cocktail hour where we take the few remaining pictures and bustle the dress and take off the veil and sit for a minute, but that’s planned and built in.
Not the wave of the future for Catholics who want a Catholic wedding. They require a dispensation for the ceremony to be anywhere other than a Catholic church building. I’ve only heard of dispensations being granted for a Catholic and a non-Catholic to marry in the non-Catholic’s church , which can’t really be characterized as a Catholic wedding.
That’s SOP here in Israel. Nobody gets married in synagogues - the ceremony takes place in the event hall/garden, typically between the hors d’oeuvre and the main course.
Maybe each parish is different then - from the Diocese of Rockville Centre site
“Permission may be granted for the wedding to take place in a non-Catholic church edifice. When the Catholic is dispensed from canonical form, the non-Catholic clergyperson takes the consent and signs the license. When the Catholic priest or deacon is delegated to perform the wedding, the Catholic clergyperson takes the consent and signs the license.In either case, the paperwork is submitted by the priest, deacon or pastoral minister to obtain the proper permissions, dispensations, or delegation.”
In both of these weddings, both the bride and groom were (well, are) Roman Catholic, and a Priest was (will be) there. I’m characterizing these as Catholics Weddings.
Oddly, from the next paragraph: “The marriage of a Catholic and a **baptized non-Catholic **does not take place in the home, in a catering hall chapel or out-of-doors.” :dubious:
Nope , the rules are the same in every diocese. They are different depending on whether both parties are Catholic, they are Catholic/baptized non-Catholic or Catholic/unbaptized person. Your cite further up says
Of course, it’s not unheard of for someone to be from a Catholic background and yet not be baptized.
ETA I think I realized what was confusing about your quote- “non-Catholic church edifice” doesn’t mean a building that’s not a Catholic church. It means a church building that’s not Catholic, like a Baptist Church or a Lutheran church.
Well, then there’s the out - both catering establishments have chapels on premise - and I would define a Chapel as a non-Catholic church edifice.
I will vouch that all four people (i.e. the two couples) are baptized from Birth Catholics, no questions there.