Twenty minutes for most weddings. Fifteen for a short one. Twenty five if you are including readings, a ritual and communion. That is the answer, and you should not have to read nine paragraphs to reach it.
Length is not the problem
Couples ask about minutes because they are worried about guests getting restless. Fair worry, wrong target. What makes a ceremony drag is generic content.
Twenty minutes about the two of you passes quickly. Eight minutes of writing that could belong to anyone feels endless. I have watched both happen from three feet away. Guests came to be moved. They will give you as long as you are actually saying something, and they check out the moment they realise the officiant is reading a template with two names dropped into it.
Nobody has ever complained that a ceremony about them went on too long.
Twenty minutes, minute by minute
- 1Processional, two to three minutes. Longer with a large wedding party.
- 2Welcome, two minutes. Who we are, why we are here, permission for everyone to relax.
- 3The story, four minutes. How the two of you got here, told properly.
- 4The address, three minutes. What this marriage is being asked to be.
- 5Vows, three minutes. Longer if you wrote your own, and worth it.
- 6Rings, two minutes.
- 7Ritual if you have one, three minutes.
- 8Pronouncement, thirty seconds.
- 9The kiss, fifteen seconds, or whatever you decide.
- 10Presentation, thirty seconds.
- 11Recessional, one minute.
That lands around twenty minutes without rushing anything. Cut the ritual and you are at seventeen. The story and the address are the parts worth protecting, because they are the only parts nobody else could have written.
What adds time
- Each reading, two to three minutes. Two readings is plenty. Three is a service.
- A unity ritual, three to five minutes. Sand, candle, handfasting, tree planting.
- Communion, five to eight minutes, and longer if guests are invited to take it.
- A family blessing, two to three minutes.
Add all four and you have a forty minute ceremony. That can be right for a church wedding with a congregation used to sitting. It is rarely right for a lawn in Del Mar.
Outdoors changes the maths
Heat, wind and standing guests all shorten patience. A July ceremony on a cliff at two in the afternoon should sit at the shorter end, near fifteen minutes, and the guests will thank you without knowing why. Wind is worse than heat, because it eats the sound and people stop being able to hear the good parts.
If your guests are standing, treat twelve minutes as the ceiling. Chairs buy you time. Shade buys you more.
The part couples never think about
The ceremony is the only part of the day designed for everyone to watch at once. Everything else is a room people move through. This is the one moment where a hundred people are still, quiet and pointed in the same direction.
It is also over faster than the cocktail hour you will spend six times as long planning. Give it the twenty minutes, and give the twenty minutes something to say.
Written by Matt Perry, wedding officiant and Lead Pastor of Love Church San Diego.