Traffic for a Friday night wedding

I'm thinking of doing a Friday night (7 pm) wedding at East Wind, which is on 25A in Wading River.

Do you guys think I will have trouble with traffic? I assume most people will be heading home around then and I don't want my guests to be sitting in rush hour traffic and be late to the ceremony or annoyed with me!

Re: Traffic for a Friday night wedding

Depends upon where most of your guests are coming from....I was just at a wedding this past Friday at East Wind and some people arrived late (it seemed like it was pretty empty until about 30 minutes into the CH, but maybe that was some people arriving 'fashionably late.' Not too sure.

Then there was a few people that came from NYC that were pretty late because they didn't get out of work until 6. I didn't ask them about traffic though.

I would say it all depends on where mot of your guests are coming from.

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

if you start at 7pm you should be fine, that gives people a lot of time to get there.

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

I travel to riverhead weekly for work from Massapequa. It takes over an hour (I'd think at least an hour and a half) to get from Eastern Nassau to Riverhead during that time. I generally travel against traffic at that time and it is one hour exactly. I'm not sure where your guests are traveling from but at rush hour the 495 is slow. HTH!

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

My guests are about half an hour/35-40 minutes away (Patchogue, Islip, Medford, etc) and others will be coming from Shirley/the Hamptons

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

Fridays are tough, I have had such bad luck with traffic for friday weddings. I think people will most likely hit traffic regardless but ,7pm is a good start time. I think anyone west of Nassau and in Nassau will def hit rush hour. It wont be so bad for everyone else you mentioned. But, it takes at least an hour to get out there from Nassau so even if they leave 2 hours before at five theyll be sitting in rush hour - it is just unavoidable lol. We have the same issue, we are doing a 6:30 start on a Friday, looking back I wish I would've pushed it to 7pm to be safe, but you have to remmeber the people who matter make it there no matter what time it is at.

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

It does depend on traffic so I was worried for you, but once you said Patchogue/Medford/Shirley etc, I think it is fine! I've commuted my whole life (most of it from Shirley) and going East a rush hour sucks, but it always ends just after Centereach, then I'd fly home. I think they are in good locations to get there with no issues especially at that time. And if they are family/close friends I'm sure they won't mind leaving a little early if necessary, but I don't think you'll have a problem. Are you in that area? Try doing a run. Leave on a Friday around that time and see how bad it is (just not this Friday because Black Friday traffic going out East to the Outlets may be bad.) Also - time of year matters - Hamptons Traffic! Good luck!!

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

I had a Friday wedding which started at 8 and there were still people who came late but not a lot. I assume most guests will take half a day off from work or leave work early anyway if they know they are going to a wedding that day.

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

To be honest, Friday weddings are tough. I think if you book one you have to understand that people will miss the ceremony and possibly even the first part of the cocktail hour. As long as you are ok with this then you should go for it. You have to do what works best for you.

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

what time of year are you thinking of?

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

shirley to riverhead takes me 30 mins MAX daily. longer if you are further down floyd. wm floyd is the worst part of my commute.
medford takes like 20 mins to riverhead, probably a little more to east wind.

however, if i were going to east wind, i would take wm floyd up to the end then go east. i think it took us still 30 mins when we looked there. this would have been on a weeknight around 6/7.

Traffic for a Friday night wedding

*we also did a test drive to our reveal & ceremony/ ch location on our 1 year date (which may be different bc it's a thurs vs fri but close enough!)