Am I stressing for nothing?

[dearlyloved]

I am getting married and having the reception at a ballroom. The time of wedding is 7:30 p.m. on a Friday night. They said that the earliest we can get in to the Ballroom is 5 p.m. I spoke with my photographer about times, etc. and he said:

"We do not want to be doing any type of posed shots within 30 minutes of the ceremony as people will already be arriving, and you and the groom need to have time to relax and get ready. So,,, as your ceremony is at 7:30 pm, we would want to be completely done with all the before shots at 7:00 pm, which would make are start time at 6:00 pm. One hour will give as plenty of time to set-up, get some “getting ready” shots and all of the before ceremony shots. Since the guys don’t have as much to do to get ready, we usually get the groom and his side of the wedding done first, then we will drag you out for the same torture! Usually (if everyone is ready and available) we can wrap up the after ceremony shots in about 30 – 45 minutes.

Do you all think that gives me enough time to get everything situated and is that making the guests wait too long to eat? I'm not sure why I'm bothered by this - am I being over dramatic?

[NicksBride]

I think it sounds like a great plan. I understand that perhaps the timing may be a little long for your guests, but they will understand and since you are doing shots BEFORE the wedding, it will cut down on the photos after the wedding. I guess I am not much help, but it sounds OK to me and as long as everyone is on time, it should be fine.

[WebLady]

Sounds alot like what I use to do as a photographer. I usually got all the posed shots before at the ceremony site. Then the guests were only waiting maybe 30 mins max. So are you having the ceremony AND reception at the ballroom?

If so then the 5pm time should be fine; are you worried about decorations or something? If so then maybe you can have some of the decorations started on the night of the rehearsal.

All the best :)

[dearlyloved]

Yep, we are having the ceremony and the rehearsal all in one place. Yep, I am worried about decorations. To fix it I have recruited like six people to help me set up everything before the rehearsal. With that many people we should have it done in no time. I am also going to talk to the coordinators about having Hor D'ourves served for the guest so they can at least have something to eat and not sitting thre starving while they wait on us to do after ceremony pictures.