Trust me, get the wedding video’d. You’ll amuse the hell out of yourself at 10 years and 20 years looking at how young you were, and it’s always touching to have that video record of those who might be gone now, but were there to share the moment (like my father-in-law).
Thanks for reminding me. We should get the wedding certificate corrected.
What? The minister didn’t write my name on my wedding certificate. And my best friends signed it without checking.
I’m not sure if it’s feasable for you. The best plan I’ve ever seen for a reception was at my cousin’s wedding. She arranged for the bridal party to be allowed into the hall to eat before the rest of the guests arrived. That way they were free to mingle & chat with new arrivals & make sure things were running smoothly while everyone else was eating. I know for a fact that my sister didn’t eat a bite at her reception because she was to busy greeting guests & talking.
Congratulations & Best Wishes.
When the Chanteur and I got married (19 years ago), we had to keep it simple. My dress was a gift from my grandmothers–one sent money for the material, and the other one made it. The flowers were purchased from Kmart and similar stores, along with floral tape and wire, and my mom made all the bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages. We bought a cake from a discount baker (she worked from her own home and made lovely cakes)–for a three-tiered cake and a half-sheet cake it ran $60. We bought snacks and punch fixings from the local grocery store. I bought napkins and invitations from a discount printer. We went to the meat department at the grocery store and bought medium sized meat trays (in yellow, to match my wedding colors!) for very little money. They made very pretty and very serviceable party plates! A good friend made my going-away dress. And the wedding hall was a local (very SMALL town) community center that we were able to rent for the entire day for only $10.
No sit-down dinner, no separate reception, no rehearsal dinner, only a small dance with taped, self-DJed music–and we were still just as married at the end of the day as anyone who’d had a huge wedding! And that’s the whole point, isn’t it! 
Although it’s logistically perfect, this would be seen as very strange at a British or Irish wedding. There’s a formality for the seating of the top table, of the senior relatives, best man, senior bridesmaid etc., which would be hard to abandon while retaining the rest of the sit-down meal. The whole point of the meal is that they are the people being honoured by having pride of place - if they’re not there, the meal just become a meal.
My cousin got married last summer & it was the most romantic wedding reception I’ve ever been to.
There was food, there were decorations, there was a cake, she wore a dress, blah blah blah. Nice details, fairly simple, all to their budget.
What made it romantic?
Well, when the DJ started playing the song for their first dance, they were standing in your standard embrace, doing a little self-conscious two-step, like everyone does. Yawn, big deal.
And then when the song swelled, they actually started waltzing. Really dancing, fluidly, moving as one. All of a sudden I noticed how shiny the groom’s shoes were, how he looked like a prince, and how graceful my cousin is, with her long beautiful neck. I’m not the only one who gasped at their fairy tale moment.
The other classy thing I’ve seen at parties is when the hosting couple spends the evening going from table to table visiting with the guests, one by one. It makes people feel so special. And it actually gives you a chance to talk for a moment. My sister and her husband did that at their wedding and everyone remarked at how gracious they were.
My husband and I did that. We didn’t have a receiving line at the church (after the ceremony), so we wanted to do something so we saw and talked to everyone there.
Thanks again guys!Despite everything…we’re still not eloping (sorry).
I’m pretty sure there will be a ceremony rehearsal, but we won’t have a rehearsal dinner (not common here).
We’re getting married about 2:30pm, so I’ll eat brekkie (if I can stomach it). I’m a one meal a day kind of person anyway, so it won’t kill me if I don’t get to eat much dinner.
The flower arranging committee from the church is doing the church arrangements for us, which is great, meaning we just have the centrepieces and my bouquet to organise.
We’re doing a cocktail hour (or 2) while the photos are done, then dinner, speeches and dancing. Evening guests will be arriving about 9pm, and there will be a sandwiches/chicken wing/cocktail sausage type buffet for them.
I’m delegating a lot to my mum, my MOH sister is going off on a round-the-world-post-graduation-gap-year and will be on the other side of the world until about 3 weeks before the wedding. My other sister is only 16, so I can’t really ask a lot of her!
I’m the first of any of my friends to get married, so I don’t have a lot of people offering me helpful hints and recommending vendors, I have to trust my mum to get the tip-offs from her friends with married children. Irishfella’s mum organised a lot for his sisters’ weddings, but I don’t really want to rely on her too much, the poor woman did enough work for her own daughters!
Hence I rely on the kindness of (kind of) strangers to fill me in with some of the other stuff, and you’re doing a great job. Cheers.
I know, I know… believe me, I know 
But it worked for our family at least.
We stayed out of the whole minefield of “pride of place” and seating charts by not having a sit-down dinner. I certainly didn’t feel capable of planning a seating chart such that everyone would feel honored. We had a dessert reception where there weren’t a lot of tables, and a dinner afterward that was a pasta buffet.
Don’t skip brekkie this day! You don’t want to pass out from hunger and excitement right when you’re supposed to say “I do.”
Well done irishgirl!
So happy for you both. Wishing you all the happiness you deserve.
My experiences (married twice) are complete opposites.
First time it was a themed wedding (Western dress as it was in Wyoming), hand drawn invitations and RSVP things. Friend catered the wedding for virtually nowt (they owed us money for a truck they bought from us). Rented a reception hall near our place. Everything was planned and I had certain expectations.
Nothing went to plan, however. Our cake was supposed to be peach and baby blue. Her kid sat on it an hour before the wedding so she ran home and “fixed it”. It was day-glo orange and a hiddeous flourescent blue. She and her husband had a massive fight whilst we were trying to get the place set up and sorted out. Only about half the guests showed up, leaving TONS of food left over and me shattered trying to deal with the ones that did come. Then to top it all off my new hubby was a prick the whole day.
Marriage two was great. **Kal **'s mom came and his brother from Wales with his family. We met at the Registrar’s office. Quick ceremony. Off to the pub for a bite to eat and lots to drink. **Kal ** and I enjoyed our day after that.
No fuss. No hassle.
That was over 4 years, 1 kid and another on the way ago.
I truly wish you a wonderful day whatever you decide to do.
Take care of yourselves!!
If you can’t handle eating an entire breakfast, make sure you have a protein bar or something similar with you to nibble at as you’re getting ready. A hypoglycemic bride is a Very Bad Thing, especially if/when things start going to pot.
I may have missed somebody else suggesting it, but you should have an emergency kit to take with you. Two or three extra pair of hose, a few pairs of black socks, small sewing kit, aspirin, feminine hygiene supplies, hand lotion, etc. Make it all up into a bag a few days ahead of time, and make it the responsibility of someone very reliable.
GorillaMan,I had a different interpretation of what little*bit was describing. Along the lines of this:
- wedding takes place
- small time gap between wedding ceremony & reception, during which time wedding party is at the reception hall having photos taken
- after photos, the guests enter the reception hall for the reception
- during the sit down dinner, the bride & groom are too busy circulating to the guests tables to meet & greet to be able to sit at their own head table & eat.
Or I might be misinterpreting what you’re describing.
Yep, I think you might be. I’m saying that it would be seen as very strange for the bridal party to not be sat at their table for at least half of the meal - once people are nearing desserts, then the couple start to circulate.
If you’re allowing anybody but you and your groom to make a list of people to invite (i.e., mother or father, or future in-laws), STRICTLY LIMIT the number of people they can send invitations to.
Of course, my wedding was a little extreme - when we refused to allow my father-in-law to send out any more invitations, he took the one we sent him, had duplicates made, and sent them to 300 of his “closest” friends, most of whom we had never heard of. Fortunately, not many of them showed up. Of course, I chalk the whole incident up to cultural differences - he’s from India, where you invite practically everyone in the city to the wedding. My family is from the U.S., and prefer much smaller weddings.
Another thing, if anything goes wrong, repeat the following as often as necessary: “No matter what happens, the end result will be the same - we’ll be married when all of this is over.” It got me through more than a year of wedding planning hell. Hopefully it’ll help you, too.
Congratulations!
Thanks for the clarification. I did misunderstand you.
Just want to reiterate this suggestion - my parents recently organised a formal dinner for about 80 people and heard about having disposable cameras on each table so gave it a try. The results were fantastic with all 9 cameras (one for each table) filled up with pictures of people eating, chatting, drinking, dancing, etc. One word of warning though - the man we bought the cameras off told us about one couple who did this at their wedding reception and were very disappointed when they found most cameras only had a couple of pictures on them, so you may want to put a small note with the camera asking for informal photos to be taken throughout the evening.
You might also want to add to the note that people should take photos and leave the cameras on the tables when they’re done. My sister went to a wedding where the bride and groom did this, and only got back about half of the cameras. People took pictures of themselves and took the cameras with them. They thought they were souvenirs. :smack:
If you’re going to do this, don’t use disposable cameras. They’re expensive, and their picture quality sucks. Instead, get everyone in your family to hand over their own cameras, and leave those on the tables. Stick labels on the cameras indicating who they belong to (so they ultimately end up with the owners). Just make sure the batteries are fresh, and carry extra rolls of film too (just make sure there is film in the cameras before they go on the table, unlike my MIL who put empty cameras on two tables and never bothered to tell anyone :rolleyes: )
I also think you should avoid using video. It only gets watched once, unless someone in your wedding party commits murder, or gets murdered, and then it ends up on the six o’clock news…