Wedding Transportation By the Mile?

Wedding Transportation By the Mile? - As a limousine service, we get a fair amount of calls from brides and grooms regarding the need for "Just a quick pickup and a short drive to their wedding/reception venues". Of course this is their way of saying, "I don't have a lot to spend on transportation". Although many limousine companies will vary from their 4 hours minimum on specific cases, many couples just want "an hour worth". You can't buy one hour worth of limousine service. It often takes longer than that to make the trip to/from the pickup location.

We conduct about 300 weddings per year and it's the largest part of our business, so we know how long it will take to complete the entire process without running out of time. Therefore, we have price several packages to accommodate the "frugal" bride and groom. So I am still amazed when I hear "It's only a short distance". It's not about the distance. It's about the huge wait-times, waiting on the bridal party at the hotel for 30 minutes and waiting on the photographer for 45 minutes. On average, a limousine spends two hours waiting and one hour transporting and one hour traveling to/from the Limousine Company garages. This is why there is a four hours minimum.

Case Study: Mary has twelve people in her bridal party. Her wedding is at 2pm, so Mary wants to make sure everyone is at the church on time, so she requested a 12:30pm pickup from the hotel. The limousine time started when it left the garage at 12:00pm. Everyone is at the church by 1pm. The ceremony started at 2pm and lasted ½ hour. Afterward lots of wedding photos are taken, which take ½ hour inside and 15 minutes outside the church. It is now 3:15pm and the bridal party is headed for the reception site, which is ½ hour away. With loading and unload, the bridal party arrives at the reception venue at 4pm. The limousine heads back to the garage and arrives at 4:30pm. The entire process takes 3.5 hours to complete. This assumes everything is on schedule. Mary has ½ hour of additional time she didn’t use. Anything less than four hours and Mary is paying a premium for over-time.

What If… The limousine had to make two trips (one of the guys and one for the ladies)?
What If… The photographer had trouble getting everyone in place and took longer for pictures?
What If… There was a traffic delay getting to one of the venues?

If a couple can streamline the above Case Study into three hours, then most limousine companies are flexible. Anything less and they are just fooling themselves and will end up with sub-standard quality, being pushed and paying a premium for extra hours.