Yes, I do lots of motorsport photography with anywhere between 1000 and 4000 images per event if it's a Sat/Sun event. I copy all the files from the memory cards into a new folder, then create a new catalogue for the files in that folder which takes about 10 seconds by the time LR starts. It means that the catalogue (and all the edits on photos) are stored alongside the raw files. It means I never need to apply keywords, build collections etc which all take time and I would never remember the specific keywords to search for anyway
This makes backing up simple, as well as copying the entire folder to a different machine to work on if required without needing to copy anything else. If I am away for a weekend, I will often copy the Saturday files onto a laptop, perform some initial culling and rating, as well editing a few shots ready for export and publishing when I get home as it saves a few hours work. Just copy the entire directory onto a fast USB3 pen drive from the laptop to main PC when I get home, which can be done at the same time as copying and importing the Sunday RAW files... Obviously, I need to have the same directory structure on both machines to avoid LR not being able to find the files on my desktop when the catalogue is copied across.
If I need to work on some files from a few years ago, I simply copy the directory from one of my backup/archive drives and open the LR catalogue in the directory. If I make any changes, then simply copy the directory back to the archive drive when I'm finished, but won't delete it from my desktop until I backup to another external drive as part of a weekly backup routine.
When editing photos, I often have many shots where the lighting conditions are very similar, so once I've edited one shot to my liking, I'll copy the develop settings and paste them to the others taken at the same time. Ok it's not perfect but gives a good starting point and saves a lot of time with most photos just needing a crop applied. Edits that require a lot of processing and slow down the workflow are dust spot cloning and noise reduction/sharpening so I don't copy these until I'm ready to export the entire batch. I then just do the first one, right click and copy develop settings, tick the boxes for just noise and sharpening, and then select all the edited images and paste. As you are doing wedding shots, you will probably want to tweak each shot individually for printing etc. But if you need to get the majority of files uploaded quickly to a web album for relatives to browse at low resolution, then the above technique will save lots of time once you get the hang of it.
For most of my work, few of the edits I do can actually make use of the GPU, so I have that option switched off to make the overall workflow faster. Admittedly scrolling around a 100% view on an image is slicker with it switched on, but with often tight publishing deadlines - typically before lunchtime the following day for many press outlets or the same day for some, then every second extra soon mounts up.
If someone then wants a print, or hi-res download of a particular image, I'll then spend a few minutes tweaking it further, and maybe opening in Photoshop for some cloning or more detailed dodging and burning if required.
When I first upgraded to LR 6.6, I too found it a nightmare with slowing down every 10 mins or so, but found that quitting LR and restarting cleared the problem so suspected a memory leak problem. I then found that minimising LR and leaving it for 20 seconds also helped a lot - maybe check emails in the meantime. However 6.6.1 has made a noticeable improvement for me, but I still minimise every 10 minutes or so just to be on the safe side, as you don't tend to notice the incremental delay creeping up on you until it gets very bad, by which time you have probably cost yourself a few minutes in wait time for LR to respond.
