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Our wedding ceremony will be performed at 5pm and should take a maximum of 45 minutes to complete. The sun sets at exactly 6:39pm and we want to make sure we have enough time to take our first pictures as a married couple. The question is should we take the pictures while our guests are enjoying a light cocktail and come back at 6:45 to receive their congratulations, or should we receive the congrats first (20 minutes according to the DOC) and then head off for the pictures at the risk of missing out on daylight?
I'm worried that if we do the former, our guests will disperse and it'll be hard to get them organized in an orderly way so that they can proceed with the receiving line (in Cyprus it is typical to wait in a line up in order to shake hands with the bride, groom, and parents). If we do the former, then they will greet us as they walk out of church but there's the chance that unexpected delays may reduce our photo shoot time.
CL and I have different opinions on this so I thought I'd get you guys to weigh in. Have you had to think about that before? Will it be too difficult to greet people after 45 minutes have passed?
Until next Friday, this is Mr. Milk signing off.
13 fabulous blogger's comments:
Things always take longer than you anticipate especially because your friends and family will be super excited and want to spend time with you guys.
Sneak off for the 45 minutes or so for pictures!
I have attended weddings where the receiving line hasn't happened until after dinner is served and it worked fine.
I say do the pictures first and the receiving line after. Everyone will still get up because they will be excited to give their congratulations.
If I were in your shoes, I’d go for doing the pictures first. It would be a terrible shame to miss a great shot that you know you’ll be disappointed if you don’t get. Plus, you don’t want to be worried and anxious about the time while you’re greeting your guests. At our cocktail hour, we’ll definitely be taking pictures first, and then greeting guests.
Congrats on your upcoming wedding! How exciting!
Happy Saturday Sharefest!
Give your guests some drinks and, importantly, nibbles (here in Italy we call it aperitivo, and we do it twice a day!). Let them wait! You only get one chance at those special wedding pics.
Thank you for your comment on my blog. All of the weddings I have attended have the Bride and Groom take the pics immediately after the ceremony and then receive congrats from their guests.
I agree with everyone and say do your pictures first! Your guests will wait to greet you & you will be able to get your perfect pictures!
Happy SITS Saturday! Have a great weekend!
We are skipping the receiving line. Our ceremony is at 6:30 and reception starts at 8 - two different locations about 15 minutes apart. We need to take pictures right away if we are going to make it by the end of the cocktail hour.
We'll go around during the reception to greet. i never really liked the receiving line anyway!
I don't think that receiving lines are such a big deal. Most weddings that I have been to, the bride and groom walk around during the meal and receive the congrats. I think you guys should be ok with going straight from ceremony to pictures while guests have cocktails and then greet them afterwards. :)
I like the former the one with the guest doing light cocktails while you grab those pics =D
Nothing of value to add, since everyone agrees: photos first!
This is a hard one. We ran late ALL day. I can totally understand why you want to catch that sunset.
The only time at our wedding that I actually saw everyone was straight after our ceremony - Mr B & I walked back up the aisle and I took a moment to hug every single guest and thank them for coming. I am SO glad I did this. The rest of the night went by in a blur and I didn't see half the people there again.
However if you're doing a receiving line you should get a chance to greet everyone then.
I say - Do the ceremony, shoot off for photos, hug the heck out of everyone as they come into the reception. That is when you're doing the receiving line yeah??
I'll be the minority here and say do what we're doing and take all of your pictures BEFORE your ceremony. I know some people just don't want to consider that as they look forward to the anticipation of seeing each other walking down the aisle first but this very concern is why I wanted photos totally done and out of the way...my guests are too important to me to leave them waiting while we're off on a photo shoot.
But since I don't think that's something you want to do, then I'd say definitely do the photos first and receiving line after. As many of the comments above mentioned, it seems to still work fine. Again, I'm in the minority and don't like receiving lines so I wouldn't do one of those at all. Like a previous commenter said, we're doing the mingling at our cocktail hour and then walking around the tables during dinner to greet guests that we may have missed at cocktails.
Our ceremony is also at 5:00 and we are also hoping to keep it to 45 minutes max. Then we go straight into cocktails with the reception entrance followed by toasts and dinner about 7:00 pm.
The best advice I can give you is to weigh out the possible scenarios of what 'might' happen and what your thoughts are on each one of them...whether or not you care if that scenario unfolds. Then ask your vendors to give you some thoughts on timelines and come up with your schedule according to what you think will make you happiest.
And remember, you ALWAYS run late at weddings!
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