How to do Transportation??

Hi everybody! I'm hoping I can poll you guys to help me come up with the best and most financially reasonable strategy for planning our transportation to our wedding. Here are the details:

1. Bridal party consists of 8 people, including me and my fiance.  

2. The ceremony and reception are both at the banquet hall. Ceremony should start at about 4:30 PM, and should last about half an hour. After cocktail hour and the reception, we should be done at about 11 PM.

3. We're having pictures done BEFORE the ceremony. So the bridal party would need to be at the banquet hall by 3:30.

4. We haven't decided if we are both going to get ready the day separately at our family's houses or if we'd want to book two hotel rooms and each get ready separately there.

Now, in light of that information, how do I get my bridal party to and from the wedding? I've thought about renting a limousine, but if I have to rent it for 8 hours, that would get pretty expensive. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? If so, what did you do, and did it work out for you? Thanks in advance for the advice!

our ceremony started at 5:30 ... we had the photographer come to us at 2:30 to start taking getting ready pics for me and my girls and then DH and his boys.  we then had our first look from 3:15 - 3:45.  then @ 3:45 our limo arrived to take us to our photo location where we took bridal party pictures and then at 5:05 we headed to our church for our ceremony.  we took family pictures after and headed to the reception at 6:40.  limo left us at 6:45.  so we had our limo for only 3 hrs so i really don't think you need one for 8 hrs.

Will your wedding party have dates that will drive to the wedding? If not, how will they get home after the reception? (Just something to think about.)

I'm having a similar dilema. I kind of want to stay away from a limo because of the cost, but I don't know how else to do it. Myself, my 4 girls, my mom, and his mom will need to be transported together. We could fit in my parents van - but how cute is that? haha... not so much. We're going from my parents' house to the venue to finish up with the decorations to our hair and makeup appointments and then back to the venue.

I guess we could maybe have the bridal party meet us at the venue instead of at my parents house?

In your situation, I'd say take a few cars if you don't want to go the limo route, but I uderstand about the 8 hour thing -because you'll need it the whole day to get the people back home.

my bridal party did not rely on the limo or on us to get back home.  they made prior arrangements so that wasn't a concern.  either they stayed in the hotel, got a cab home or had their dates drive them back home. 

and i had a HUGE bridal party (20 in my BP to be exact) and everyone worried about themselves after the wedding.  i really do not think that your bridal party will be expecting you to worry about how they get home that night, kwim.  but then again you know your bridal party better than i do.

This may sound crazy but what if you reserved it for two blocks of time? I've been thinking about the same thing but my ceremony and reception are at two different sites. I agree with midnyteblue though...

Well, 4 of our bridal party will have dates. The Best Man and Maid of Honor are dating, so we'd definitely have to figure out something for them. But I guess you're right, midnyte. If the other members of the bridal party all have dates that drive separately, they could just ride home with them. But we would still need to figure out how to get me and FI back to wherever we're spending the night.

Maybe we could just all carpool to the banquet hall, take pictures there, and then we could arrange for a car to pick up me, then-husband, MOH and BM and take us back to the hotel/house. That would be way cheaper.

I'd set up two blocks of time for a limo, but I'm worried they'd send two different cars and two different guys.

Thanks guys for being my sounding board about this!

You could probably request to have the same driver.

oh that sounds good if you set up two blocks of time that way you are not paying for the whole 8 hrs.  that would be a crazy price!  i also agree with future that you can request the same care and same guy.