Nevada-Las Vegas

Home Reception

I'm wondering whether people will be having a reception closer to home to celebrate with those who can't make it to Vegas? We're travelling from the UK so a lot of our family and friends won't be able to make it due to cost etc. We knew this would be the case so have decided to do a reception at home when we return. I was just wondering if many other people are doing this? What's your plans when you get back?

Re: Home Reception

  • Nope. If I wanted a big party I would be staying home and having one. For me the whole point of Vegas is to have a small, low-stress, low-key wedding where I don't have to plan a bunch of stuff. Having a reception at home would be exactly the opposite of that for me.

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  • Nope. We have people ask but I don't them this is it. I know some are disappointed but as PP stated, this is why we went to Vegas. Plus if we had one back home it would have to be both of ours so that would be 2 receptions. 
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  • My mom and her husband are throwing us an informal reception in their backyard a week before our wedding - really chill, just burgers and beer. Also, her husband's band will play for some entertainment. It will give some of our family members and friends the chance to wish us well before we head to Vegas. :)
  • I don't have an opinion either way, but will caution you that some people view home receptions as a gift grab, so they can elicit negative opinions in some people.

    Married in Vegas - June 2011


  • Thanks for the replies! When we booked, we had a lot of people asking. My gran in particular got quite upset because she won't be able to make the trip. We are going to Vegas because we want a low key stress free wedding. We have compromised by saying we will have a low key do in a hall with a buffet when we return. We have also made it very clear since we got engaged that we don't expect or wish for gifts! :)
  • We had a "pre-wedding party" before our DW and I am so glad we did it. It was a few weeks before we left. There was a special excitement because we weren't married yet and people were wishing us well as we prepared to leave. It was truly just a way to celebrate with some special people at home. No gifts.



  • laurenlozzylaurenlozzy member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment Name Dropper
    edited January 2015
    We too are travelling from the uk and are having a evening reception the following Saturday we return from vegas. I've always wanted a small wedding (we have only invited immediate family- 8 guests) and the party will have around 150 family and friends at a hotel in our hometown. This is a perfect way for us to celebrate as we didn't feel comfortable asking people to pay to come to vegas. In the uk it's not seen as money/gift grabbing, most peoe tend to expect you to have a party after... And you get to wear your dress twice! Always a bonus :smile:
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  • @laurenlozzy Those are my thoughts too. I think our friends and family are kind of expecting this. Are you having a photographer at home? How are you wording your invites for reception at home? Thank you!!

    We are getting married in October and are away until the end of October. So we are thinking early December to allow time to get all our pictures through and recoup before. Do you think this is too long in-between?

    Thank you for all the responses so far! Its great to hear about people having parties before, I hadn't considered that but that sounds fun!!
  • Another UK bride having an after party!!

    I'm having a party at a hotel with buffet & bar. We always said we wanted to get married in Vegas, we would prefer to elope but members of our family really wanted to come so, as it was important to them, we decided to let our nearest and dearest join us in Vegas.

    The after party is going to be a really relaxed party - its not going to be a formal reception. There are people who are unable to come to Vegas and the after party is making them feel part of our celebrations. 

    I agree with laurenlozzy - I don't think its viewed as money/gift grabbing in the UK. I think its similar to the fact that in the UK its normal to send out your gift registry details with the invite - whereas I think that this can be viewed as rude in the US. Not that I'm doing a gift registry for my after party - but I know for a fact some people will want to give us a gift.
  • Thanks @Knottie83318556 I never even considered that people may buy us gifts for our UK reception. We just wanted to celebrate with those who can't come to Vegas as we want to include them as much as possible too!! 

    Sounds like you have a lovely party planned. Do you mind if I ask how close to your wedding you are having this? I worry we are leaving it too late afterwards but we want to make sure we have our photos for people to view and for our guestbook! Have you sent invites out for this?
  • Some people may want to buy you something MishMashPotato! I didn't expect or want gifts but my mum has already told me some people want to get us a gift. 

    I'm getting married in Vegas w/c 14th September and my after party is on 17th October - so a full month after. We are having a honeymoon following Vegas so won't be back in the UK until 1st October then I have a couple of weeks to finalise everything and get myself together before the afterparty.

    We currently have two tiers of guests which probably sounds really rude - but as various members of our family insisted they wanted to come to Vegas we decided to invite everyone close to us to Vegas in a formal invite and also put in a "save the date" card for the after party. This was ridiculously in advance, as in 12 months in advance because of the Vegas aspect of it. 
    The tier two guests haven't received anything yet (they are people who are good friends but it wouldn't feel right to invite them to Vegas, nor would they probably want to go). 

    We are sending out invites to everyone in May time which is again a lot earlier than a lot of people say you should do it, but I need everything pretty nailed down in August before we go away. 

    I'm also of the view that I prefer as much notice as possible for events so I can look out for deals at hotels etc. I'm not sure what I've done/am intending to do is right - but I'm happy with it :-)


  • I agree, it would be like having two receptions. I'm definitely not thrilled at that idea! But a send-off party sounds like a good idea.
  • laurenlozzylaurenlozzy member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment Name Dropper
    edited January 2015
    @MishMashPotato‌ I don't think that is too long in between but the sooner the better, we are going to display pictures at the party where the table plan would usually be but as our reception is only a week after wedding will have to be prints that our family have taken rather than our pics from Bentley & wilson. 
     
    We have planned for the reception to be formal like a wedding reception would be decorated, photo booth, candy bar etc. We are having a photographer at home too mainly for casual photos rather than lots of posey ones, will just be lovely to have picture memories of our guests as our friends , baby nieces and grandparents etc will not be coming to vegas. We did find this very hard to find a professional photographer who would not charge us a whole days fee for 3-4 hours of photography. Being October it's not wedding season and we've managed to find a lovely man with a studio around the road from us willing to do this for us. Like to think that was meant to be! 

    As far as invitation wording is going am finding this rather difficult although have been trying to find something suitable so far have two options: 
     Option 1 Joe and Lauren 
    will be married on the twenty fourth of September two thousand and fifteen in Las Vegas, Nevada 
    The honor of your presence is requested for a celebratory reception
     on the third of October two thousand and fifteen 
    at seven thirty in the evening
     ** not sure on this one may confuse this with being invited to vegas*** 

     Option 2 
     We are pleased to announce that we will be married in Las Vegas, Nevada 
     We would love for  ___________________________________ 
     To join us for a celebratory reception when we return as husband and wife 
     at 
     3rd October 2015 7:30pm 

     We will be sending our invites out June/ July for the October reception. Invites for our actual wedding in vegas were sent out just over a year prior to allow for flights etc to be booked . Hope this helps xx
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  • We just invited family and less than a handful of friends to Vegas and then had a reception at home 3 weeks after. 

    This is the wording from our invitations:
    M and L are pleased to announce their Las Vegas Marriage
    Saturday the second of October 2004
    Please join our celebration
    Saturday the twenty third of October

    Hope this helps
  • Thank you for the advise ladies!! Its been really helpful!

    Our family and friends have requested we have a celebration in the UK and I really want to include some people who can't come to Las Vegas so we will definitely be having a party when we're home.

    laurenlozzy This sounds great!! We are also thinking about doing a candy bar but making one ourselves! (I've seen some great jars etc on Amazon!) Not sure if we will be able to afford photography but a few friends and family have great cameras so hoping that they will capture some nice moments at our party in the UK. I think I personally prefer option 2 and may be stealing this hehe. Thank you!! Thats so helpful!!

    @mspenn Thank you!! Thats really helpful! I think I will be using a mixture of yours and Laurenlozzys invites! 
  • Hey @MishMashPotato,
    I'm a UK bride and had a home reception after the wedding. 

    I got married in Vegas in April, and had a honeymoon in California, arrived home 3 weeks after we left the UK, and our reception was 2 days later. 

    The main reason we had the reception was to celebrate with family members and close friends who couldn't make it to Vegas, in particular my grandparents who weren't able to travel to the USA. We ended up having a hotel function room, with 150 guests. We showed our wedding DVD on the big screen and a slideshow of a selection of our photos from Vegas (sent to us by email a week after the wedding by our photographer Joey Allen). We put together our own candy bar, provided everyone with their first drink via a punch fountain, had a buffet, and 5 different cakes (we didn't want a traditional wedding cake). The room had 10 tables set up with balloon centre pieces in red, yellow and blue (Vegas sign colours), we had 4 red uplighters and that was it for decoration. We had a band playing for 90 mins, and then had made our own playlist for before and after. We wore our wedding outfits, as did our bridesmaids, best man, and my Mom. The invites were an A5 card, pretty simple, with the red/yellow/blue colour scheme. We mailed them out 4 months before, and they specifically said that we would rather guests didn't bring gifts (half of the guests had to travel for the reception anyway and we didn't want them to spend any money), but about 30 people gave us gifts anyway. We collected photos from family and friends rather than having a photographer, it worked pretty well. 

    Wording on the invites were: 'We invite you to celebrate the marriage of Jemma and Jim at their Home Wedding Reception', on the back it explained what we meant by home wedding reception, the bit about gifts, and the directions etc. 

    Having the party two days after getting home was almost too soon, and it was crazy rush and we were exhausted. However, we really wanted to have the reception before we went back to work, we wanted it to be the first time we saw people after we got home. We got a free room upgrade in with our party booking and so we stayed over in the equivalent of their honeymoon suite even though we live round the corner from the hotel, and quite a few of our guests also stayed, so it was great to all have breakfast together the next day. Also we were able to offer our place to guests who couldn't really afford to pay for a hotel room :)

    Yes it was a bit more to organise, but the Vegas side of things was so straight forward and we saved so much money that it wasn't much extra hassle to have the home reception as well, and it was so much fun that we're very glad we did it. Perhaps the best bit of all was that my grandmother felt that she hadn't missed out on anything as our home reception to her was like being at 'the real thing' - that means the world to me!

    Here's some pics:

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       UK based bride, getting married in Vegas on 14th April 2014!
  • We are planning an at home party 3 weeks after our wedding. It will be very low-key, just food and beer at a local brewery. No wedding dress, no photographer. We might show some photos of the wedding, but would focus on just the bride and groom, try not to make people feel left out. We only invited immediate family, and a few friends to Vegas, and this is the way I am dealing with my guilt for not inviting many friends and family!
  • One of the things I've been adamant about since deciding on getting married in Vegas is that we are having ONE wedding and ONE celebration of it, and if people won't make the effort to come to that, then they miss out. Sounds harsh, but my finances Mum isn't even coming because she's convinced it's not a real wedding and we will have to have something in the UK when we get back. 
  • Jiimanie for such a detailed response!! Looks like you had a great time!! We were considering showing the wedding too so its great to see that worked for you! I love the idea of it being the first time you see everybody when you get home! I can't believe you were able to do this two days after getting back! How were you not jet lagged? haha. 

    Its lovely to hear that you had really positive feedback from your guests. The more planning we are doing, the more were realising that there are certain people who are very important in our lives that we are struggling to include because they can't come to Vegas. We're definitely sticking to our decision to have a party to celebrate in the UK. I think we may look at having it a little earlier than originally planned though.

    vegasbaby2015 I know what you mean about the guilt and I agree it definitely removes some of the guilt by having a celebration in the UK :)

    finallymrsroberts its not easy but you need to do what makes you both happy and what best for you! Maybe you could sit down with your fiances mum and have a good chat with her about how important it is for you both that you just have one event?
  • Hi we are having a home reception at night at a local golf club a week after we get home, alot of our family can't make it and our grand parents are old. We're having a band and hot roll buffet For our friends and family. I wanted a small intimate wedding in vegas then have a big party to celebrate when we're home
  • @mishmashpotato We were quite jetlagged! But the adrenaline powered us through! We had an early night the night before and had our alarms set for 9am to give us a bit of a lie in, but we ended up sleeping until 10am and almost missing our chance to collect two of the cakes! The day ended up being a bit of a crazy rush, but we had a lot of help and it was all worth it! As it was a bank holiday weekend we then had two days to recover before going back to work. 


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       UK based bride, getting married in Vegas on 14th April 2014!
  • We're planning a full ceremony and reception in Vegas, and then two 'after-party' receptions in our home towns.

    My fiancee's American and I'm Canadian, and for added complications, our families are not only from two different countries, but two different coasts. Rather than having one side of the family travel over the other, we decided to have an 'open door' policy on a destination wedding. If you want to join us in Vegas, that's great! If you don't, that's fine, too! 

    We're keeping it relatively simple and low key in Vegas, and are inviting probably 40 people (with the expectation of around 30 showing). We're doing at home low-key get togethers in each of our hometowns after for our family members and friends who couldn't travel to Vegas for whatever reason (health concerns, family obligations and the like). Both receptions are planned as being exceptionally low-key (beers & burgers at the beach for my hometown, and probably something similar in his).

    We don't want this to seem like a money grab to anyone, as we don't want or expect any gifts. We're clearly stating this on the announcements & invitations, as well. 
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