Travel time between ceremony and reception

Idiophreak

wanchai wrote: »

Oh dear, now I am worried that ours is too far away!!

Don't worry about it - I expect it's just me being a fusspot

LalaGomay

Thanks for your replies. Quite reassuring. An hour is definitely a long way, but I think it would be worth it.

We would provide a London bus or something between the venues for anyone who didn't want to drive.
But then surely you have to provide one back as well? I've never really understood how that works. Maybe people have the fun London bus thing on the way there, but then a cheaper coach or minivan on the way back.

I really need to go to more weddings, for research if nothing else. I've only been to a couple.

MaggieBaking

We got married at the same venue as the reception. A friend had about a 20 min half hour coach ride. For the perfect venue I absolutely would travel an hour after a church service. I would strongly consider putting some coaches on. To and from venue would probably be about £400?

ellay864

Between our daytime at the zoo and the party in the evening it's about 45 mins - 1 hr drive. We're laying on a coach so a lot of our guests don't have to do any driving - it's cost about £300 from shopping around but we wanted our guests to be able to relax and not have to do that journey twice, as many aren't local but will be driving some distance to join us and staying in the town where our evening do is

LEJC

LalaGomay wrote: »

Thanks for your replies. Quite reassuring. An hour is definitely a long way, but I think it would be worth it.

We would provide a London bus or something between the venues for anyone who didn't want to drive.
But then surely you have to provide one back as well? I've never really understood how that works. Maybe people have the fun London bus thing on the way there, but then a cheaper coach or minivan on the way back.

I really need to go to more weddings, for research if nothing else. I've only been to a couple.

Does the venue have parking that you could use?...if so and you want to provide transport you could specify on the invites that everyone meets at the reception venue to park their cars and then is provided transport to the church and then following the church they are all taken back to the venue...it means you only need to hire the coach/minibus for a set time and following the reception people are able to leave whatever time they want as there cars will already be parked there....

In doing it this way round you are hopefully going to be able to have more idea of accurate travel timings for everyone between venue and church because they will all be travelling together...and hopefully you wont be in the situation of missing a few guests because they have taken a wrong turning...and it probably means you will know that you only need to book the transport for a set amount of time...
I think your guests would also feel more inclined to make the journey to the venue if they knew that you were providing some transport for them too

MaggieBaking

My friend who had coaches thought a lot of people would be staying over at the hotel. So they would drive to the hotel, leave their cars and the coach would take them to the Church and then back to the hotel after the service.

If you all live near the Church, I'd probably lay on a coach from the Church to the hotel and back again in the evening. A friend did this when he was getting married over an hour away from the "locals".

mrs_B_5

Our church was an hour away (by car) from the venue for our reception (which was held at the town we live in) and the hotel many guests were staying at. We put on a big London bus from the town hall (our reception venue) to the church and back again, which took around 1 1/2 hrs to do the journey. All our guests were offered the opportunity to use the bus and some did, some didn't, but we absolutely loved the bus and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Our ceremony started at 12.30, we offered tea & cakes in the village hall for an hour or so afterwards whilst we did photos and things, hopped on the bus to drive to the town hall, had our gorgeous 3-course meal and then partied the night away

Everyone has commented on what an amazing day it was, what a fab idea the bus was and not one person has commented on the distance between the church and the reception...with the exception of a grumpy grandma who would have had us get married and have the reception on her doorstep if it meant she didn't have to put herself out (sorry for the rant )

chatnoir

We made our guests travel 5 hours on coach to our wedding destination! But it was a weekend wedding and we paid for their accomadation.
A few people moaned about it when on the coach, but they knew the distance before they RSVP'd!

Think if people are aware of the distance before hand then its not such a shock on the day.

ashtray_heart

It will take an hour from our church to the reception. This seems very normal to me as the village where we are marrying in (and OH is from) is in the middle of nowhere. Most weddings that I have been to have had an hours drive to the reception and none have provided transport. We have found that people were very good at arranging lifts amongst themselves.

eleanora_

Our ceremony and reception are in the same venue - firstly because it's gorgeous and is a good price, and secondly because as we've got people coming from Scotland, Dorset etc., I would feel bad making them do any more driving round a part of the country they don't know that well (and also I don't want to fork out for a coach if I can avoid it )