Notes On A Wedding, Part 4 ~ What Is The Ideal Time To Get Married? 3pm, Of Course…

In part 4 of our series 'Notes On A Wedding',
Emma Woodhouse, aka,
 The Wedding Reporter shares her thoughts and observations on the perfect time to tie the knot…

If you’re not getting married at 3pm, don’t panic. I’m going to be completely transparent and say that this article is almost entirely biased, based on the fact that I got married when the clock hands sat at right angles. However, what I’m about to tell you is also based on a wholly unscientific observation of other weddings over the past two years.

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Image Credit, Pinterest

As with most facets of my life, the claim that 3pm is the perfect time to get married is based first and foremost around the subject of food. Whilst you may not feel like eating too much before your wedding, there are other people who will, namely your guests, who are going to be doing a lot of waiting around. By having a 3 o’clock ceremony, you give them plenty of chance to eat a proper lunch and still have time to get ready without a fluster.

A mid-afternoon wedding also contributes to lowering your catering costs throughout your day. Due to the close proximity of your ceremony and wedding breakfast, there’s much less of a need to invest in canapés as your guests will not have had chance to get too peckish after their own lunches. With your wedding breakfast benefiting from a late afternoon/early evening time slot, you might also find there’s no great need for an extensive evening buffet either. Snacks for the win!

Why else should you consider getting married later in the day? Why, because you won’t have to get up so early of course! Those of you with morning and midday ceremonies may find that a 5am hair and make-up call is not the zingy start to your wedding day that you had wished for.

If, like me, your face looks like it’s been hit with a sack of potatoes if you even venture out of bed before 7.30, it’s really worthwhile considering pushing your ceremony back a bit. I also think wedding mornings are infinitely stressful anyway, so if you give yourself a bit more time to get everything done, you’ll be far more serene as you glide down that aisle.

I spend a lot of time watching guests at weddings and I always feel bad for them when they have an epic three or four hour gap between the ceremony and wedding breakfast. With the best will in the world, even the closest of friends and family can find themselves flagging in enthusiasm when the newlyweds have been spirited away for photos and they are left to entertain themselves.

By having a later ceremony time, you decrease the amount of time your guests will be waiting around. Again, from a monetary perspective, this could save you the cost of entertainment, be it musical or live acts such as magicians, to keep your wedding party amused. A well-structured and tightly timed drinks reception and portrait slot is, to my mind, far more preferable than an interminable wait with too much small talk and endless group shots.

Similarly, shifting everything a little bit later will also decrease that tricky in-between time after the wedding breakfast and before the evening reception. I much prefer to see one lead into the other, rather than allowing guests to slink off onto a sofa and feel a bit dosey after their meal. That’s not the way to get a party started!

If you do opt for a 3pm wedding ceremony, you also stand a greater chance of getting better light for your photos. This will obviously vary depending on the time of year you’re getting married, but you’ll certainly miss the brightest part of the day that has the harshest light and if you’re lucky, you’ll capture that magical time before sunset when the sky is set ablaze with gorgeous hues and makes you and your new spouse look like supermodels.

So there you have it: some slightly sketchy reasons as to why mid-afternoon matrimony is the new in-thing. I would, however, also caution that if you’re thinking of having a later ceremony time, you really will need to heed those words of advice to make the most of every minute. Time will fly even faster and just 12 hours after you walked down the aisle, you’ll be dragging your new husband out of the bar and off to bed already, so enjoy every second from 3pm onwards!

I'd welcome your thoughts; what time did/are you planning on tieing the knot, and why?

Emma
The Wedding Reporter

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Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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