You'll want to allow plenty of time for traveling to the ceremony site. Each church has its own recommendation. One groom recalls that his church's advisory was for the groom and the best man to arrive one hour before the ceremony, but the groom says, “That was way too much time. We didn't do anything except sit in the back room and wait — and that was the only time I started to feel nervous. I would have said thirty minutes was more than enough time.”

However, keep in mind that the photographer may arrive to snap a few shots of you before the ceremony; if you want a clarification as to when he'll be arriving, make sure to call and ask. It may turn out that the package you've chosen doesn't include any “extras” like these pictures of you and the best man, in which case you'll really be sitting and twiddling your thumbs until the start of the ceremony.

Again, your church will give you its own recommendations. But if the priest wants you to arrive two hours before the ceremony and you feel that's excessive, don't be afraid to raise that issue with him. It could be that ninety-nine percent of the grooms he's dealt with have made it to the church in the nick of time, and he's instituted this new policy to avoid cliff-hangers; he doesn't know that you're an absolute stickler for schedules and you would never arrive less than thirty minutes prior to the ceremony. You might save yourself a lot of annoyance by clearing up this issue before it becomes a problem.

Depending on how far you live from the church, you should always allow for extra travel time. Obviously, if you can look out your kitchen window and see the steeple, you're within walking distance and precious little will keep you from arriving on time. However, if you're traveling from one end of the city to the other — or out to the 'burbs — don't plan your travel down to the nanosecond. (“All right, I did a practice run and it took me twenty-eight minutes to get to the church; but it'll be Saturday morning and no one will be going to work, so it should take me about twenty-one and a half minutes.”)

Won't you be surprised to find that everyone is on the road doing their weekend errands? It's going to take you an extra ten minutes — which means that you're going to arrive eighteen minutes before the ceremony, which isn't enough time (and this is exactly why that priest instituted his two-hour policy for grooms).

Even if you arrive in town sooner than you need to be there, you can always take a spin around the block; you can listen to your radio; and when the mood strikes you (and the clock dictates that you should do so), you can enter the church. Today is not the day to live by your motto:“Better late than never.”