Would you drive half an hour? An hour? More than an hour?
We want to get married in the church where my grandparents did, but it's in the middle of nowhere, so we'd really have to have the reception elsewhere. I was thinking that maybe we could have little snacks--like bags of popcorn and specialty bottled sodas--packed up with maps to the reception site to make the trip a bit more pleasant.

45 mins or longer and you risk guests not showing up for either the ceremony or reception.

I was going to say 30 minutes at the most until I read about the popcorn. Then I changed my mind. :-) But, then I realized that I wouldn't know about the popcorn when I was sending the RSVP, so I'd just decline the reception.

(unless you are a really close friend of mine)

An hour is fine -- and more, if it's something special.
Driving within a city of any size, it's bound to take 40 to 50 minutes to get anywhere, anyway.
Good for you for wanting to be so traditional - we would have done the same, but the country church was so tiny, not many people would have fit!

half an hour is the max. I think an hour is asking too much of your guests.

the farthest we have driven to a reception from a church was about 20 miles and I thought that was pushing it, but not too bad. i would even go half an hour, but more than that is just too far, especially when you figure that most people will be drinking at the reception and will have to drive home after that. plus, what about all of the friends and relatives coming from out of town....they probably won't want to be driving all over the place either.

I would not go to this wedding if I was invited.

If it were up to me, mine would've been about a 50 minute trip, but we couldn't get that hall, so we wound up (changing the date anyway) and going with one that he wanted that was closer.

i think if your providing the transport u can have the wedding/reseption where ever you like

as in hiring mini buses or if u have the money for limo's
then your guests will all arive at the same time and will be able to catch up with each other during the ride

BUT 1 THING TO REMEMBER WHEN EXPECTING TO GET THE GUESTS TO DRIVE FROM THE WEDDING TO THE RECEPTION IS...how can they drink and dance and celebrate with u if they have to keep the energy and sober-ness (if thats a word) for the drive back

30-45 minutes max. That is about what it takes to get across town in a medium-large city. I wouldn't have a large gap of time between the ceremony and reception though since the guests would be driving for awhile and probably wouldn't know what to do with any extra time.