Wedding planning has a natural order to it. Venue, date, dress, photographer, catering, flowers. Transport tends to arrive somewhere near the bottom of the list, usually once someone asks how people are actually getting from the church to the reception.
By then the answer is often "they will sort themselves out". Sometimes they do. More often it produces the thing every guest has experienced at least once: a gap of ninety minutes between the ceremony ending and the reception starting, spent in a car park, in good clothes, wondering where to go.
Transport is not a nice-to-have at a wedding. It is the connective tissue between the two halves of the day.
The gap is the problem, not the distance
Most couples think about transport as a distance question. It is really a timing question.
Between the ceremony and the reception there is almost always a gap, because that is when the photos happen. The couple is occupied. The guests are not. What you do with that gap shapes how the day feels.
If guests drive themselves, they scatter. Some go to a pub, some go back to the hotel, a few get lost, and they arrive at the reception across a forty-minute spread. The room fills slowly and the energy takes an hour to recover.
If guests travel together, the gap becomes part of the day rather than a hole in it. They arrive together, the room is full when the doors open, and the reception starts the way you planned it.
Count the people who actually need a lift
Not every guest needs transport, and working out who does is the first useful step.
The ones who reliably do: anyone staying at a hotel, anyone flying in, older guests, anyone who will be drinking, and anyone travelling with small children. In practice that is usually more than half the guest list, and often considerably more than couples first estimate.
The ones who often do not: local guests with cars who are staying nearby.
Get to a real number before you decide on vehicles, because the difference between forty and sixty guests is the difference between one vehicle and two, or between one trip and a shuttle.
Shuttle or single run
There are two basic shapes, and they suit different weddings.
A single run takes everyone at once, in one or two vehicles, on a fixed departure. It is simple, it is usually cheaper, and it works when your guests are all in one place at one time. The catch is that it is fixed — anyone who misses it is making their own way.
A shuttle runs a loop between two points across a window. It suits weddings where guests are spread across several hotels, or where people want to leave at different times. The number that matters here is not vehicle size, it is loop time. If a round trip takes forty minutes, the last person waits forty minutes. Sometimes two smaller vehicles running opposite loops beat one large one.
The last run home is the one they remember
Guests forgive a lot. What they do not forgive is standing outside at eleven at night in the cold, waiting.
The end of the night deserves as much planning as the start, and more than it usually gets. Decide when the last vehicle leaves, put it on the invitation or the website, and tell people again on the night. If you are running more than one departure, make the times obvious — a card on each table works better than an announcement nobody hears.
There is a duty of care dimension too. If you have hosted a bar all evening, providing a way home is not a courtesy. It is the responsible thing, and it is far cheaper than the alternative.
Ask the venue where a coach can actually stop
This is the detail that catches people out, and it is a five-minute phone call.
Plenty of beautiful wedding venues — heritage buildings, beachfront properties, winery estates, inner-city spaces — have no practical place for a coach to stop. Narrow driveways, low branches, tight turning circles and a car park designed for cars are all common.
Ask both venues three things: where a coach can set down, whether it can wait there, and whether there is a height or length restriction on the approach. If the answer is awkward, it is much better to know while you can still plan a nearby set-down point than to find out with sixty guests on board.
If you are still choosing venues, our guide to Perth wedding venues covers six that are worth a look.
The guests who need more thought
A few groups are worth planning around specifically:
- Older guests. Steps into a vehicle matter, as does how far they have to walk from where the bus stops to where the event is.
- Guests with mobility needs. If anyone uses a wheelchair, that determines the vehicle. Ask early — it is entirely arrangeable with notice and very difficult without.
- Children. Whether they need restraints, and whether the vehicle can accommodate them.
- The wedding party. Often travelling separately, on a different schedule, and easy to forget when the guest transport is being planned.
Booking, and when
Wedding season in Perth clusters. October through to early December, and again from late February into April, are the busy stretches, and Saturdays in those windows are the first to go.
If you have a date and two venues, that is enough to book transport. Numbers can move. Timings can be adjusted. Availability on a Saturday in November cannot be conjured in September.
What to have ready when you enquire
You will get a useful quote faster with these to hand:
- The date, and both addresses.
- Rough guest numbers needing transport.
- Ceremony end time and reception start time.
- Whether you want a single run or a shuttle.
- What time you want the last vehicle to leave.
- Anything unusual — mobility needs, a third pickup point, a long gap to fill.
None of it has to be final. It just has to be close enough for someone to work with.
We have been moving wedding guests around Perth since 1987, with vehicles from 12 to 83 seats. Tell us the two venues and the timings and we will work out the rest — request a quote, see how we handle wedding transport, or call the team on (08) 9351 8980.
