Need restaurant ideas for post-ceremony dining

ssteele04

I have been the one to say it's about the bride and groom but being on this forum has taught me a lot and i have changed my out look thanks to a few las vegas brides who have nicely put the thank you part to the guests, b/c yes they are taking time out of their schedule some of them spending a bunch of money witness you getting married, i have received so many good ideas! Transportation, food, cake, etsy shops, survival/welcome bags..all of those came from this group!

wrigleyville

We had an in-suite reception for 43 people. It cost $1000, with tip, to have heavy apps from Masterpiece Cuisine. We could definitely have gotten away with less, though. I've seen brides take people to In-N-Out for a patio party, and there are brides who had pizzas sent up to their suite.

It doesn't have to be expensive, but you really do need to thank people for flying out to witness your wedding. I get that budgets are tight, but you can always decrease the budget in other areas. I got a $99 dress from David's Bridal, we used as few flowers as possible, and H made our invitations. As such, we were able to host our guests properly.

Had we not had the money to do so, we would have either reduced the guest list or changed it to a local wedding (since that would save the cost of airfare and hotel, which we could then turn into catering and alcohol).

wrigleyville

Also, I saw some chapel packages that included a cake and punch reception. Some of them were $500 or less. 702 Weddings has a really nice one, and I think Chapel of the Flowers has something like that too.

MobKaz

LadyBirdSikx said:

Thanks to those that have helped. Just like in the other post, to those that have jumped to conclusions and decided they know all about my personal situation and my wedding from the three posts I've done, I wish you the best of luck with your wedding endeavors!

What you fail to understand is that those who try to impress upon you how rude and inappropriate your current "plan" is, are the ones providing you with the greatest help.  

ssteele04

for us we are not made of money, and we are having yard sales, going thru our house looking at crap we can sell, i make homemade detergent and sell it ( sounds tacky but people love it up here) i bought my dress of facebook, i bought my step daughters dress off davids bridal when they had their big sale a few months ago, my mom is making my daughters dress, i looked at oriental trading company, etsy, amazon, stuff like that to help with costs...throwing different ideas out there for budget purposes

JoanE2012

LadyBirdSikx said:

Hi! My big day is October 8th, 2014. We are eloping and the only guests will be immediate family and very close friends. As such, the attending list is pretty small; it's looking like 12 people right now, including bride and groom, with the absolute max number being 15. I am desperately trying to find a restaurant to dine at after the sunset ceremony. We are not having a formal reception- all guests are paying individually for their meals, and we don't want a private room! Does anyone know of any great restaurants that allow larger group reservations, without having to pay for a private room? Also, I'd love to have a cake delivered to our table, but understand there might be outside catering restrictions. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I am appalled that you are having people fly out to see you marry and you can't can't buy them a freakin' meal.  If you couldn't afford it, you should have kept it truly private with just you and your FI.  Now that you have guests, you must host them properly.  I don't care what your situation is.  This is awful. Stop being so cheap and rude. 

lookame3639

It's pretty rude to "host" a dinner by inviting your guests to dinner then telling them to pay up. Sure your guests "understand" but just because you say they understand does not make it any less rude (plus they are still probably talking to each other about how rude you were) you can at least host a cocktail hour of cheese and crackers, cupcakes, fruit ect. You could even get sandwiches catered in from sams club or costco

. If you need to cut down on some other areas like buying a used or preowned dress (i found one for $40 at a local resale shop, goodwill also accepts wedding gowns and resells them for a decent price). Find a venue that provides decor or that is pretty enough not to need decor. When there's a will there is a way.

still i have a feeling OP feels she's super right in this case and won't accept anyone telling her she's rude because "we just don't understand her situation". (Btw I do I cut down my guest list from 100 all the way to 15, cut our photography budget, bought a $40 dress, using no decor and am making our own cupcakes for our cocktail hour. I've cut out a good chunk of money to properly host our guests and we are treating them to a very nice dinner)

Blue_Bird

LadyBirdSikx said:

Hi! My big day is October 8th, 2014. We are eloping and the only guests will be immediate family and very close friends. As such, the attending list is pretty small; it's looking like 12 people right now, including bride and groom, with the absolute max number being 15. I am desperately trying to find a restaurant to dine at after the sunset ceremony. We are not having a formal reception- all guests are paying individually for their meals, and we don't want a private room! Does anyone know of any great restaurants that allow larger group reservations, without having to pay for a private room? Also, I'd love to have a cake delivered to our table, but understand there might be outside catering restrictions. Any suggestions are appreciated.

LadyBirdSikx- Can I just tell you personally, how it feels to be a guest at such an occasion?

I was invited to a very good friend's wedding. It cost $3,000 total for my DH and me to make the trip to his destination wedding, which my friend told me was his fiancee's "dream wedding" and he wasn't going to get in the way of "her day". After all of that money and the cost of a gift, it was honestly hurtful to find out that we were expected to pay for the meal at the restaurant they chose for after their sunset ceremony. Of course we smiled and congratulated them, never complained, but it was hurtful that there didn't seem to be any thoughtfulness or appreciation. Just "All About Us" after we'd sacrificed our vacation time and made a point to be there for them. It's "just a meal", but honestly, it's a slap in the face. You CAN afford to host your few guests, it just isn't a priority for you.

wrigleyville

Agreed. We were verbally invited to our friends' wedding this June, with the promise of receiving an STD no later than February (we still haven't gotten it, btw).

During our conversation about how awesome their Vegas wedding will be, I told the bride I'd be happy to help or suggest things, since we were just married there in October. She asked a couple of questions about their venue, and then she said, "Oh, and we're having dinner at Wicked Spoon."

I told her their private room is really nice, and she said, "Oh, no, we're just sitting in the buffet. We aren't having, like, a formal dinner or anything. We thought it would be nice for our guests to have a lot of choices, and it's not very expensive, so everyone can afford to come out for dinner with us." 

I must have blinked or something because she rushed to say, "Well, we can barely afford to go to Vegas as it is, since I just lost my job, but we didn't want to have the wedding here. That's so boring. We want a fun wedding. So we figured people wouldn't mind since it's Vegas, and it'll be a vacation for them anyway, and they'll be so happy to be there, and they'll understand."

I sort of side-eyed H, and after we left, I said, "So, I'm going to use two of my vacation days to attend a Friday afternoon wedding, we're going to spend $1000-1200 on plane tickets, a hotel, and a gift, and now we're expected to pay for our own dinner?"

Needless to say, when/if we do get the invitation, we're going to decline. We'll still send them a gift, but this really rubbed us the wrong way, and it's definitely affected our friendship. I was going to suggest she just order some pizzas up to their suite or maybe ditch some of the stuff in her budget (like favors people won't use), but I bit my tongue since that would have been rude on MY part. She hadn't asked for my input on the dinner issue, so I didn't give it.

You may think your friends/family are okay with this, but trust me - they are not. They just won't say it to your face. They'll be thinking it and talking about it behind your back instead. Nobody here has been rude; they're simply saying what everyone else will be thinking.

ssteele04

@wrigley~ thats what happened with us, when we found out the average price for food, we had a family member suggest a buffet, even then that was expensive. I feel that if you can't afford a full out reception have something, cake/toast/garter toss/flower toss and some light appetizers 

hyechica81

you cant afford to scronge up about 200-300 to feed everyone but you can afford to stay at mgm i have stayed there we got a deal and i am sure you did to fly to vegas do what normal people do in vegas. and you cant afford to feed them how rude i would rethink inviting anyone if i had to pay for my airfaire hotel and then dinner plus a gift for you i would have no money left over to even enjoy what little time i had in vegas


and your worried about a cake being delivered to the dinner? we dont need to know your situation but you asked for advice and we are giving it to you. people talk about bad weddings even small ones. i am sure those guest will be talking about how they have to pay. did you tell those guest you have to pay for dinner sorry we cant afford to are they ok with it?

alicialfisher

GOOD LORD!! 

Ladies, what's with the judgment?? She asked for dinner recommendations, not to be berated by people she doesn't know about what you feel she SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be doing. Yikes. Why put down one of our own? We all know how stressful this wedding stuff can be. I love coming to these boards because I can share my own personal experiences with people and ask for advice, not judgment. I can't even believe how mean some of you are being. Does it make you feel better about your own choices or something? 

Yikes. 

You're not giving advice if you're veering off topic from what was asked - you're giving your opinion on something completely different. Do you think that she's going to change her plans based on your horribly rude, inconsiderate and sometimes downright harsh commentary? 

Why is it so hard to keep your thoughts to yourself on something that you don't have a right to comment on or happen to agree with?

Y'all should seriously be ashamed of yourselves. Women need to stick together, not tear each other apart. 

This is such a sad post. I hope they delete it... Totally embarrassing in comparison to most others.

alicialfisher

AND... I just realized the people being extremely rude on here all came from another board on purpose just to continue to harass the original poster!! INCREDIBLE!! 

JoanE2012

alicialfisher said:

GOOD LORD!! 

Ladies, what's with the judgment?? She asked for dinner recommendations, not to be berated by people she doesn't know about what you feel she SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be doing. Yikes. Why put down one of our own? We all know how stressful this wedding stuff can be. I love coming to these boards because I can share my own personal experiences with people and ask for advice, not judgment. I can't even believe how mean some of you are being. Does it make you feel better about your own choices or something? 

Yikes. 

You're not giving advice if you're veering off topic from what was asked - you're giving your opinion on something completely different. Do you think that she's going to change her plans based on your horribly rude, inconsiderate and sometimes downright harsh commentary? 

Why is it so hard to keep your thoughts to yourself on something that you don't have a right to comment on or happen to agree with?

Y'all should seriously be ashamed of yourselves. Women need to stick together, not tear each other apart. 

This is such a sad post. I hope they delete it... Totally embarrassing in comparison to most others.

What about the guests who are traveling to see her wed that will have to buy their own dinner after the wedding?  Why in the world would we advocate and support a "buy your own meal" reception and provide restaurant opinions?  That's incredibly rude to your guests and extremely selfish.  I'm appalled that anyone would even consider that.  You don't treat friends and family that way.  If you can't afford to spend $15 or so on them for a meal, then you have a truly private ceremony.  There's no excuse.  None.

alicialfisher

Oy.

wrigleyville

I'm not from "another board". I had a Vegas wedding, and I offered MULTIPLE suggestions for feeding her guests while sticking to a budget.

Instead of staying at MGM, stay somewhere cheaper and put the savings toward going to a pizza parlor after the wedding.

There. That's another suggestion. I think that brings me up to four.

wrigleyville

Also, people are commenting because they want to save her from looking rude. Did you not see the examples a couple of us posted about going through this exact same situation when invited to DWs?

I hope she DOES change her plans based on what people said. That's the whole idea behind explaining why it's rude not to pay for dinner when people fly out for your wedding.

Valeriecruz82

I think everyone is different. I have had a good amount of guests make comments about how they were expecting to pay for their meal, and also even more of them have mentioned how they were expecting to put $ in for our party bus. Even though we are providing both it just goes to show not everyone goes expecting to be fed or to be catered to. Yes It is the right thing to do as you are inviting them but I do agree with the PP. more then half of these people that commented I had not once seen on this board before this post. I hope all the craziness this post caused didn't make the OP feel like she can't post here without being judged because that's not what this board is for.

alicialfisher

The original poster asked for restaurant recommendations not etiquette advice... That's my whole point. Maybe that's confusing to some, but I can't seem to understand why, if you didn't have a restaurant reco for her, you would comment on something she didn't ask about... Maybe I'm just the crazy one. Hope she finds a great place to do as she pleases with her day. And may the rest of you have wonderful big days as well.

ktbabe530

I totally agree with Alicia!   

If the poster wanted etiquette advice she probably would have posted on the etiquette board, but she didn't, she posted on the Vegas board.  If you don't have any suggestions for Vegas restaurants maybe you shouldn't post.  

As for restaurant suggestions that might work...

- The Pub @ Monte Carlo, huge place and reasonable prices

- Gilly's @ TI, also pretty big, good food and fun atmosphere, you could line dance in your wedding dress!  

- Burger Bar (between Luxor & Mandalay Bay) I've seen large groups there even on Friday/Saturday nights.  Food is really good!

Have you considered a buffet at all?  Wicked Spoon is really good and so is the buffet at Mandalay Bay.  

chibiyui

alicialfisher said:

The original poster asked for restaurant recommendations not etiquette advice... That's my whole point. Maybe that's confusing to some, but I can't seem to understand why, if you didn't have a restaurant reco for her, you would comment on something she didn't ask about... Maybe I'm just the crazy one. Hope she finds a great place to do as she pleases with her day. And may the rest of you have wonderful big days as well.

Enh. If someone asks whats the best rope to hang themselves with, I'm not going to go over the pros and cons of nylon and cotton, I'm going to tell them that they shouldn't hang themselves.

And with that, I'll stay away from this thread/board. Best of luck to you as well.

MobKaz

alicialfisher said:

AND... I just realized the people being extremely rude on here all came from another board on purpose just to continue to harass the original poster!! INCREDIBLE!! 

Someone from "your" board must have leaked the private security code......

MobKaz

GlitterWitch22 said:

I somehow got through security and knew the right password to read this board.... guess I'm some kind of bad-ass for scoring access to such a private affair. 

I've had my suspicions you were a renegade rainbow rider......

Valeriecruz82

^^^^^^ perfect example so many people coming from who knows where lol

MobKaz

shrekspeare said: Valeriecruz82 said: ^^^^^^ perfect example so many people coming from who knows where lol

I assumed everyone knew where we came from. We came from the DDs. 


Who knows where??  From the all public, all the time Knot wedding boards.  If you want an exclusive club, you can form your own private forum via Facebook or other social media.  Perhaps if you ventured beyond your rainbow and roses local board, you would realize there is a whole world of etiquette conscious women out there.

Valeriecruz82

^^^^^ she's got jokes haha

Valeriecruz82

I happen to love daisies more then roses lol is there etiquette saying roses are more better for weddings then daisys? I like to live on the edge I guess. Lighten up ladies life doesn't always have to be about etiquette live a little haha

[Deleted User]

Don't feed the trolls, guys.

OP, you can find a lot of great info at vegasgroom.com and littlevegaswedding.com. Once this has died down, try posting again. While I agree *in concept* with many of the non-Vegas Knotties here, it's even more tactless and rude of them to stalk you here. You'll find many people willing to help here even if your shindig isn't 100% our style.

vegasgroom

This thread is a perfect example of why TK getting rid of moderators was f'ing stupid.

alicialfisher

Ugh, I was hoping you could delete it VG... wishful thinking.