@missypie, when is your son’s wedding - sorry that I’ve forgotten - I know it’s somewhere in the 34 pages of this thread!
May 21st!
OMG! Is that starting to feel SOON!!!
S’s wedding is exactly two months from today. That’s seems SOON!!
@calmom .Thanks SO much for that link. I just sent it off to future DIL and once she saw the list, she is totally on board. A former co-worker of hers does this as a side job and she has already talked to her! I am breathing a sigh of huge relief… S is having an outdoor wedding and while there is building access to change and use bathrooms, everything else must be brought in.
I’d advise interviewing more than one coordinator. My DD first found someone local to her who seemed pretty good, but when she and FSIL talked to the 2nd person – who lives closer to the wedding venue - they were blown away by how much more knowledgeable and organized the 2nd person was. The charge for the one they hired was +$350 more than the first… .but they would have had to pay transportation costs for the first one.
The link I gave you was just from a site I found by Googling-- I thought they had a very good to-do list to share, but I don’t know about the quality of their services. My DD’s wedding is taking place in central NJ, near Trenton - and the coordinator they are hiring works with a group based in Philly (very close geographically) – with tons of excellent reviews. I’m guessing that overall this is the sort of thing that you want someone local (to the venue), who will be familiar with local vendors and know where to go and who to call in the case of an unexpected last minute problem.
Anyway… I don’t really know… just know that it’s one less thing for my DD and I to worry about.
Also, we have a problem relative to worry about, and apparently the day-of coordinator is also able to intervene to handle any problems that might arise from that person’s anticipated need to make the day be all catering to relative’s needs, rather than the rightful focus on bride & groom.
I"m a MOB-to-be but I can assure you that I am completely out of the loop on that one. I assume that RSVP’s and gifts are going to DD and FSIL.
Thanks @calmom. I will tell them. S and FDIL are getting married on a college campus where they both work, northern Detroit suburbs. We live 3 hours away. Coordinator also works there so they are all familiar with the venue and the area. Reception is 30 mins away and they have a reception coordinator that comes with that place.
We will have no problem relatives/guests…worry more about country club guests who may “crash” the reception.
@calmmom, if you don’t mind sharing, what’s the name of the group your daughter is using for the day of coordinator?
Here’s the web site of the agency my D. is using: https://www.detailsmadesimple.com/
Just a caveat: they made a great impression on the sales end of things… but I won’t know until after the wedding as to how they actually perform. So I can provide pointer… but too early to be making a recommendation.
I’m going wedding dress shopping with my daughter and maybe my SIL this Sunday at a Macy’s in NYC, where both of them live. This will be our first attempt at getting a dress and I guess we need to do it soon since she has a fall wedding. Any tips? She’s petite, only 5 foot, medium build. If we have time, we’ll look at MOB dresses but I’m not counting on that.
My son’s wedding was this Friday. It was the most fun three days i have ever had:
Thursday evening rehearsal and small intimate ( haha) rehearsal dinner (we hosted) for 50. Followed by a long night of sitting around a fire pit at the hotel, where quite a few of the out of town guests gathered. Wedding day was Friday. Traditional wedding in a beautiful church on a hill in the Maryland hills. Sunlight broke through for only a few minutes all day, just in time to stream through a stained glass window in the peak of the church as the wedding party walked down the aisle. Most of the windows are clear and every window has views of rolling hills and woods. After the wedding many of the guests drove back to the hotels to catch two busses to the reception (winery) so that nobody would have to drive anywhere after the reception. The winery was beautiful, it was cloudy and cool outside. There were cocktails and hors d’erves served on an outdoor patio, followed by dinner and dancing., Once the dancing started most of the doors of the ballroom were opened so people flowed in and out. Again, after the guests were returned to the hotels many of us stayed up into the late hours.The morning after the wedding the bride and groom hosted a brunch at a restaurant in a historic area.
There were 200 guests. The bride is from the area, as are all of her relatives. The grooms side (us) is mostly from out of town. Although our family has lived in Maryland for a number of years, our extended fsmily lives all over the country, so the hotels (two blocks of rooms, one hotel a more “adult” place, and one is more “family and kid friendly”) were full of our extended family and the friends of the bride and groom, who booked hotel rooms so that they wouldn’t need to drive, even though many of them have parents that live in the area.
I’ll post more about details (flowers, dresses, etc… Later.)
So very thankful that there was no drama at all, it all went well, and every guest had a great time.
So very many moving parts. The key was that the bride and groom accepted every offer of help, made fast decisions that they never second guessed, and the bride had worked for a photographer during college, so she had a mental list of vendors she knew.
Congrats @eastcoascrazy your after party glow comes through!
in addition, to all the other interesting details, can you share more about the rehearsal dinner. We will be hosting one in July in Chicago area,and are flying out next weekend to see the venue for the first time.
Were there any moments or ideas you can share which made that memorable?
Curious what were the music selections if you did the mother/ son dance, and the bride/ father dance. Did you find shoes comfy enough for the entire event?
Did the shuttling go smoothly ?
Happy for you @eastcoascrazy ! Sounds like a wonderful wedding weekend!
Congrats eastcoastcrazy! - for enjoying AND surviving!
Would love to hear more about items/touches that were absolutely necessary/appreciated and those that they could have done without.
Best of luck to the happy couple!
Saw this today and it made me chuckle. Some wedding tips from The Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/graphic/budget-wedding-tips-38434
Here are some tips for throwing the affordable wedding of your dreams:
Start thinking early about where to trim costs. Gradually fall out of touch with family and friends for a decade prior to the ceremony.
Go digital! Online invitations are a great way to save money and create the forgettable, disposable air you want your marriage to have.
Think practically about what gifts you’ll need as a newlywed couple. Consider opening a registry at your local bank.
Instead of hiring a DJ, don’t.
Personalize your reception by enlisting a close friend to take the pictures, design the invitations, arrange the flowers, drive the shuttle bus from the wedding to the reception, and cook dinner for 213 people.
Rest assured that no matter what you spend on your wedding celebration, it’s still a unique expression of you and your spouse that will be picked apart and scrutinized by your loved ones for years to come.
Ha, that is a funny list of tips by The Onion.
Actually, one of my daughter’s is having a friend design the invitation. Some of the performers at her reception are also friends.
That’s great about her friends’ involvement, @soozievt. I think those sorts of things really help personalize a wedding. It’s great to have creative friends.
Got ALL the performers, the flowers and the invitations taken care of by friends. Really disappointed that we cant come up with a friend caterer or shuttle bus driver! :)) Thanks @doschicos !
And of course NO DJ!! Only live music.
Rehearsal dinner:
We rented the top floor of an excellent brick oven pizza cafe in a renovated older building in an historic small town between the church and the hotels. Both of our families had been to an event there and love the atmosphere and food. The top floor is a private dining room with a few velvet couches in nooks. It has its own full service bar designed for events for 25-50, and the restaurant has several set menus for events. We had a variety of pizzas, salads, bruschetta provided by the restaurant, and brought in individually wrapped heart shaped cookies decorated as brides and grooms for dessert. some people ate the cookies, some took the cookies when they left. We paid for an open bar.
The one unexpected thing about the rehearsal dinner, and maybe this is only a regional thing or something that has become a “thing” since the last rehearsal dinner we attended (seven years ago), a friend told me about back in February. “They will expect a slideshow of the bride and groom at the rehearsal dinner.” What? (insert small moment of panic here.) Fortunately, the room has a full mulitmedia interface and a pull down screen setup. The the maid of homor is an expert at putting together slide/video shows set to music, and she was thrilled to pull it all together.
It certainly wasn’t necessary, but it was really fun for the two families to see slides of the B and G growing up, and then slides of them together in college and on two trips to Europe. The slideshow was set to music, and probably 5 minutes long.
Other than bringing in the dessert cookies and the maid of honor providing the laptop and cord for the slideshow, the restaurant provided everything else. The tables were set, the food was buffet style. We did not add any decorations or centerpieces to the tables. I’m pretty sure nobody cared. We had the room reserved for 3 and a half hours, and quite a few people stayed the entire time.
We had 48 people at the rehearsal dinner. We invited all of the relatives who came from out of town and the wedding party and immediate families and significant others. We would have been over 50 people had all the out of town relatives been able to attend the wedding. We contacted the relatives back in mid winter (save the date cards had gone out in the fall) to get a feel for who was coming and whether the numbers were going to work.
Completely not necessary but nice (this was discussed earlier on this thread) were gift bags for the hotel rooms and little wedding favors.
The bags at the hotels would not have been done at all except for good friends of the bride who asked to do them as their gift. They had personalized gift bags made and put in travel size lint rollers, wrinkle release spray, Advil, tissues, Shout Wipe and Go, a bag of a local brand of potato chip made with Chesapeake Bay Crab Seasoning, and a small bottle of water.
The favors were a small box of home made and hand wrapped (last Sunday, we had snacks and did it assembly line style) caramels and Hershey Kisses, in a small gift box, wrapped in a ribbon and sealed with a monogramed sticker. Again, adorable, cute, appreciated, but nobody would have noticed or missed them if they hadn’t been there. But it was a fun afternoon for us to chat, and go over last week details while we put them together. The caramels are a family thing (bride’s family). They make and wrap them for many occasions.