Is 3:30pm too late for an afternoon(ish) wedding? My dream has always been to have lots of candles and christmas lights at my wedding reception. Our venue is a reception hall at a church that has wall-to-wall windows, so in order to have candles it would need to be dark outside. The entire reception doesn't have to be dark, but I would like for part of it to be. I also want to do a sparkler sendoff. We are worried that if the ceremony (30-45 minutes long at the most) is at 3:30, and the reception starts at 4-4:30, people will expect some kind of dinner. We can't really afford to have a full sit-down dinner at our reception, so FH and I are having a soup bar and lots of finger foods. Our wedding date is December 27th, and the sun goes down (in Texas, at least) at 5:15-ish that day. We know the reception won't be all that long, as we're not having drinking or dancing (Baptist church). Probably more of a stop by, grab cake and some snacks, say hi and go type of thing. Thoughts?