Writing for New York "Daily News", Hinckley noted that the complex storyline and darker themes seen in "A Canterlot Wedding" would make it appeal just as well to older viewers, and made the episode also feel relatively ambitious for a children's show. Hinckley and Michelle Profis of "Entertainment Weekly" noted that the episode's timing was also close to the one-year anniversary of the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. "Entertainment Weekly" writer Hilary Busis, reporting about the "invitation" that appeared in "The New York Times" to promote the episode, noted that it is "ambitious, absorbing, and thoroughly entertaining".