Workbook - Page 5

Step 2 – Ceremony

Let's look at the timeline for your ceremony next.

1. How long is your ceremony?
   • I usually allocate 30 minutes for the ceremony including walking down the aisle, vows, songs, readings, unity candle and walking up the aisle.
   • If your ceremony is a Catholic Mass, I use 1 hour.
   • For a Jewish wedding, I use 30 minutes for all of the essential elements, plus a couple brief speeches.
   • A Greek Orthodox wedding lasts approximately 1 hour if the you want a full ceremony. If you want the shorter version that is about 30 minutes.
2. Will you have:
   • A receiving line at the end of your ceremony? This is not as common as it used to be. It is a nice way to greet every person who attends the ceremony. This adds about 20 to 30 minutes to the timeline at the end of the ceremony.
   • Dismiss the rows in the church? This is also another way to greet guests. This adds about 15 to 20 minutes to the ceremony timeline.
   • A bubble (or some other type) send off before you begin family pictures?
3. Think about what time you want your ceremony. Many brides have their ceremony at 3 pm, 4 pm or 5 pm. If you are having an evening wedding, you might want to go as late as 6 or 7 pm. One of my clients could only get her church at 11:00 am and then their reception began at 5:00 pm with cocktail hour and dinner after.
4. Choose a time for the ceremony. This step will be tweaked as you move through your timeline creation
5. Guests typically begin arriving 30 minutes prior to the start of the ceremony.

Example: Victoria and her future husband chose 4:00 pm as a start time for their ceremony. They are having a church wedding with the ceremony lasting about 20 minutes. They plan to greet their guests during dinner so will not have a receiving line and the ushers will dismiss the rows in the church. But, they are planning a Bubble Send off before family pictures start. So they estimate the ceremony to complete at 4:30. Victoria will block from 3:30 – 4:00 for guests to arrive.