Personally I hate being on the client's timeline because their project is taking up space on my hard drives and I don't like having projects drag out over the months or years. I require that the client has everything I need to edit their project to me before the wedding, that way I can get started on it right away and finish it without any delays.

HDDs are cheap these days. I uses those removable drive rack and SATA HDD docking. SO I can offline some of the videos.

I offered client honeymoon slideshow. That has to be done after the wedding for obvious reason. If they don't hire my photographer, I will still need to wait for them to get me photos for the DVD cover. If they made their own slideshow to be played in the reception, I will also ask them for a copy. All these things can't be gathered before their wedding.

Very true. For anything that I can't get before the wedding I still have a deadline for after the wedding to make sure the couple gets it done. I know HDD aren't as expensive as they used to be, but if it saves me time AND money to have a couple get their stuff to me faster, then I'm going to do it.

It's probably just a personal preference. Nothing wrong with the way you're doing things. I just don't like that method.

My contract states a max of 60 days. I can however edit a full 12hours, 2 camera shoot in 48hours if I'm really inspired! It comes down to my busy life style I cant just edit all the time.