Weddingbee boards

Our wedding (ceremony and reception) will be at one location on a Friday night.  Some folks will leave work early, others won't, some will have time to eat before, others won't.  I'm still undecided about the time of day but we are looking at 6 or 7 for the ceremony with reception to follow immediately.  Only about a 20 or 25 minutes ceremony :)

If it is dinner, it will be buffet with one main course - if apps, they will not be hand passed.  Either way, we are doing a seating chart (which I know is more "dinner" esque)

As a guest, which would you prefer out of the poll options?

EDIT:  We live in a high traffic area and the venue is about an hour north of the city areas.  Someone getting off at 5 pm either way is going to be hard pressed to make it there on time for either time frame, unfortunately.  I'm also open to going a bit later, say 8 pm, with appetizers beign the only option.

@sadie - The wedding is in Arlington.  I guess the reason I'm so worried about it is that we live in Marysville and we have a hard time getting people who are any further south than Everett to come visit us.  It's always "well can we meet in between?" or "oh that is so far away!" - It's really not, considering he and I live there and work in Seattle and Bellevue, repestcively.  Now granted, yes it IS a wedding - but I'm actually concerned that people will arrive late due to traffic etc.

My first preference was 7:00 pm with a buffet dinner, so I think I will stick to that.

This is probably one of those moments where I'm overly concerned about people not being able to get off of work, etc...  And if I were doing it during the day then I think that would be different.  It's night, is should be fine and be really fun.

Thanks @LittlestBirds - I TOTALLY AGREE that people have a warped and skewed idea of distance.  We chose Marysville and love it there - but I gotta say that hearing people who are CLOSE FRIENDS make comments like that just drives me insane.  We drive into the "city" everyday and event for night time parties, etc and never complain because we chose to move to move there.  And while I knwo it was our choice, it makes me sad when others act like we have completely put them out by doing so.  (end rant on living in M-ville!)

What is nuts is the sit down dinner is actually the same cost as non-passed apps with our caterer, so in my head I've mentally been all about 7:00 pm / Dinner since day one.  I'm letting people's comments get in my head!  :)

I think this is tricky and really depends on the style of food that you're interested in.

We're getting married on a Friday, but it's New Year's Eve, so most people will get off work earlier. We're still not having the ceremony until 7PM though since it'll last til after midnight and I just like later evening events. We're doing heavy appetizers, but that's more because we want the fun of finger foods! The plan is more to have more choices, especially more fun choices, than the standard buffet.

Our present plan is to do two tray passed appetizers during a social time (I don't want to say hour, because it'll be less than that) and then follow it with a heavy appetizer buffet. I want to throw that idea out there, that maybe you could do tray passed AND buffet!

I think that appetizers work better though with a more flexible seating arrangement though. Part of the reason we chose finger foods is so that people can walk around and mingle and aren't stuck to the table with their fork and knife.

So I say: 7PM ceremony and do a buffet or else change your seating plans if you want a heavy appetizer buffet.