Wedding Stress

stephproffitt · May 2013

My fiance and I got engaged May 7th, 2013 and have no plans to wait past September to get married. I am well aware September is rapidly becoming the most popular wedding month. It also happens to be my favorite month of the year. We wanted to get married September 7th because it would be four months to the day since our engagement as well as my grandparents wedding anniversary. It is a small ceremony and reception (38 people including him and I) and we are on a $5,000 budget, which so far has not been a problem. We are leaving wiggle room by having either a hors duerves and cake reception if the venue takes a huge chunk or if it does not then we will have a traditional dinner reception. The problem: finding a venue on a Saturday in September. It's not just the Saturday it's the price and SIZE! Everything is huge. We finally found a place that is absolutely perfect BUT every Saturday in Septmeber is booked. Sundays are available still. It literally breaks my heart to move the date. Also, the reception site will allow us to have the ceremony on the back veranda, but that is where the cocktail hour was going to be so we could have our pictures taken AFTER getting married in the church. If we change the ceremony to Sunday, will I be able to find a church to marry us? If I have the ceremony at the recption site on the veranda, how do I politely say okay now take your chairs and move them back into the dining area?

I just cannot picture what I am supposed to do with my guests while we are switching over the ceremony site to the cocktail site.

HisGirlFriday13 · May 2013

First, congrats on your engagement!

Second, whatever else you do, you do not aka your guests to move their chairs. You hire someone to do that.

Third, depending on your church, maybe. If you're Catholic, probably not.

calliopeia2013 · May 2013

Have you talked to the venue about how to handle the room turnover? When I got married, our venue had to turn over the room from ceremony space to reception sapce during the cocktail hour, while the guests were in part of the room. The venue had done it a million times, it worked like clockwork, and there was nothing whatsoever for me to worry about. Really, if this venue regularly does ceremonies and receptions in the same place, they should know how to handle this.

Certainly without making your guests do any heavy lifting, which is obviously not an option.

As for the church thing, it totally depends on your church, so you would have to ask.

[Deleted User] · May 2013

If you haven't already posted to your local board, do that ASAP. Someone in your area may be able to recommend and out of the way little place that will be fabulous for your wedding. Good luck!!

erinlin25 · May 2013

September 7th is my birthday, so good date choice

Other than that, all you can do is decide what is more important--the date or the venue? We wanted to get married June 1st, but the venue we loved was unavailable and it was either any friday in June or a saturday at the end of June. we opted for Friday June 7th-- it is now and will be special because its the day we will get married. We also got a better deal for the venue since a Saturday wedding had a minimum, which we would not have met since we wanted a smaller wedding--so it all worked out for the best! You are not going to celebrate the day you got engaged, so while yes it would have been "perfect" for the 7th in the moment, the 8th will be just as perfect because it is your wedding date. With all your what if's, it just may not be "the date" for you. If you want a church ceremony you need to get that settled first before picking a reception venue.

and also just make sure if you do hor' devours and cake, make sure its not at dinner time. If you have a reception during dinner time you need to feed your guests dinner.

and agree on turnaround--that is something the venue should do--not you or your guests.

Do you have a church for the 7th??

stephproffitt · May 2013

Thank you for your responses!

Erikan73, I did post on my local board for venue info and was given a tip that lead me to find the venue we ended up selecting. Thank you for the tip

Also, I should add that I would never have any guests move chairs, it was my way of getting across how absurd that sounds and what on earth should I do to avoid that. It is just my family attending, aside from 4 couples of college friends, but still I don't want them to work at my wedding. My mom and fiance helped talk me down and after getting over the initial heartbreak of changing a date I was very attached to, I am happy with the date we have selected. We reserved Sept. 15th, which is still a Sunday. My pastor will not be able to marry us because he will be doing our Sunday evening service, so we are now looking for a new officiant.

The venue is a small lodge that is perfect in every way except it has hunter green chairs =/ which are not my idea of a beautiful ceremony chair. The compromise my fiance and I are currently playing with is this: having both ceremony and reception at the lodge. Ceremony outside, reception inside. In order to avoid the chair problem we will be renting white folding chairs for the ceremony that will be folded and stored during the reception when we will be using the regular lodge chairs. Since our guest list is small and we will save money by combining events we can rent the extra set of chairs. For anyone who has ever had to change a date when more plans had been made than ours, my heart goes out to you.

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