Your transaction will be in queue in mempools before it gets a first confirmation. The first confirmation is a hardest one to get but after that, it is on the blockchain and you will never have to mind about its fee rate or how congested mempools are.
In average block needs 10 minutes to be found and if it needs longer time, it won't be like 30 minutes or 1 hour likely. Your transaction will get its second, third confirmations in next 10 to 30 minutes or 1 hour but will not have to wait like 24 hours as a first confirmation. Because new block will be added after about 10 minutes for each.
Except if something really massive happens with Bitcoin blockchain like majority of miners turn off their rigs.
It is different with a first confirmation. If you use very low fee rate, your transaction might not be confirmed after 1 or 2 days or longer while on the blockchain, many blocks were found and many transactions with higher fee rates were confirmed by miners.