Timing Is Everything

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

For our original wedding vision, though the locations and reception menu were in flux, I was pretty much set on a sunset ceremony.

Image via StyleMePretty | Photography by Our Labor of Love

Image via StyleMePretty | Photography by Our Labor of Love

Not only was it very romantic, sunset for our wedding day was predicted at 6:49pm which was just perfect as it was on the clock’s upswing.

Years ago a bride-to-be come into the shop to order her invitations and Mama Leadfoot commented on the very precise time she had written into her wording. It wasn’t just “half past two” or “two thirty in the afternoon” but two thirty-ONE in the afternoon. She explained that her daddy was the luckiest person she ever met and he said getting married while the clock was on an upswing was lucky, so that’s what she was gonna do!

While I’m not overly superstitious, I do think that doing little things like this certainly can’t hurt. For me it’s more about going in with the right intentions and the right mindset, and the clock being on an upswing is a physical reminder of those good intentions.

According to a little bit of Internet research, the clock-upswing superstition is common in China, but seems to have filtered throughout the various cultures. And while the notion seems to focus more on the minute hand, I figured if one hand going up was good, then both would be double-good!

When we switched our wedding from sunset to mid-morning, it became a matter of deciding how early was too early. Neither of the Road Trips are the cheeriest morning people, so too early wasn’t a great idea, not to mention asking our guests to be up bright and early wouldn’t be the most hospitable thing. Mid-morning seemed like a good idea, but we also knew that most of our guests would be driving about 45 minutes to get to our venue, which could make an even a mid-morning start a bit touchy.

Good thing we were already thinking it’d be fun to have the cocktail hour before the ceremony, so that gives us some wiggle room if people aren’t really up and moving as early as need be. (Not to mention gives us plenty of time to get ready in the morning without having to get up at the crack of dawn.) And since I never had any intention of hiding away in some bridal lounge before the ceremony, it also gives us plenty of time to greet our guests, take some photos, and generally make merry before the ceremony.

How did you determine the timing of your wedding?