ceremony/reception gap fillers?

[charbie]

so we are having a catholic ceremony within mass at 2:30pm on a saturday- therefore it should be finished by about 3:30ish. reception/cocktail hour doesn''t begin until 6pm, any ideas what i can have my guests do for that time? its about a 20 min drive to the reception, and many guests will be staying in the area of the reception. most of our friends have gotten married in ceremonies beginning after 6pm, so there is no gap, but our church didn''t allow it.

i''m getting my pictures, then we plan on actually doing a "receiving" during the cocktail hour so that we have more time to party and don''t have to feel rushed to get to every single table- i want to enjoy the reception!

 

[ficklefaye]

charbie, from the many catholic weddings i''ve been to, the one thing i really wanted after the ceremony was FOOD! i don''t know why, but i''m always hungry after the ceremony and the wait for the food at the reception just seems like an eternity

can you suggest a good place for appies?

 

[ficklefaye]

oh another option that my friend went with, there was a room in the building adjacent to the church that they were able to use, they have a little appie hour there for their guests, very informal, paper plates, plastic utensils, mostly finger foods like eggrols, spring rolls, fresh fruit, veggies

the bride and groom even joined in after they were done with photos, it was like their reception before the reception

 

[MakingTheGrade]

I"m in a similar position, except that dinner starts at 5:30 and the mass starts at 2. But my fiance pointed out that if the mass ends around 3, people will probably mill around the church a bit until 3:30 to say hello to people. Some will want to go back to freshen up or change which would probably take half an hour to an hour, so the gap in reality is more like just an hour, which isn''t so bad.

My fiance''s side of the guest list is going to his mom''s to hang out in between, and our friends from out of town are all in the same hotel and will most likely just hang out in each other''s rooms.

I wouldn''t worry about it too much unless it''s a very formal wedding where''d they look odd doing anything else in ball gowns.

 

[Luckyeshe]

Another idea is also to have a mini event like maybe a game or tournament people can do while they wait for the reception. Or maybe bring in one of those photo machines and let people get crazy and get started taking pictures.