How Long Should Your Wedding Be?

There are definitely differences of opinion on what constitutes the ideal length of a wedding ceremony. If you've attended church weddings, chances are that it lasted close to an hour. If the wedding service is combined with the denomination's typical Sunday service, as the Catholic wedding is combined with the Mass, you're going to have a long wedding. It's been our observation, however, that the "sweet spot" for most weddings, especially outdoor weddings, is 15-20 minutes. Done right, this time frame will provide your family & friends with a meaningful ceremony, and no one will be checking their watches. On the other hand, you don't want your wedding ceremony to be too short. If you are just having a quick exchange of vows with your witnesses and close family, 5-10 minutes is probably fine, but if you've invited a lot of people, you don't want them to feel that they got all dressed up for nothing! The length of the ceremony is one of the variables that we at Beyond Illusion Wedding Officiants look at when working with you to design your wedding.

Connected to the issue of length of time is the "flow" of the wedding. A well-crafted ceremony will have a momentum that builds to the vows and then smoothly brings you to the conclusion. We've done close to 600 weddings over the last twelve years and have a fairly good feel for what kind of things contribute to the flow and what things bring things to a screeching halt or make for awkward segues.

The bottom line for us is to work with you to provide you with a wedding ceremony that reflects what is important to you.