Destination Wedding Questions

jhawkins313

Congrats to me for having another really dumb question. 

We live in Michigan but are getting married in Tennessee. 

We're renting a cabin, not any ordinary cabin - I mean a super luxurious, awesome, fantastic, expensive, HUGE cabin in the smokies for our wedding. We will have our ceremony at the cabin outdoors in the woodsy area, and a formal, catered, seated dinner in the cabin dining room afterward. 

Everyone we are inviting is "immediate family" our parents, siblings, our two kids (14 & 11), two grandmas and a grandpa. So, there are 13 people total coming to the wedding, including fiance and me.

We get the cabin on Friday, ceremony and dinner are Saturday.

FH and I will set everything up when we get there Friday, and we have welcomed anyone who wants to come Friday night to arrive anytime after 8pm - so we can have the rooms assigned and set out the welcome gifts, etc. and settle in basically. 

Our wedding ceremony is not until 6pm Saturday.. 

We have the cabin until Monday morning. Everyone is welcome to stay until then - but I will not know everyone's plans until I get my invites back, or whenever they decide what they are doing or can figure out work schedules, etc.

My question is this: 

Do I feed everyone - every meal, everyday? I totally expect everyone to stay on Saturday night at the very least. The next day I am planning a breakfast/brunch for everyone. I guess I would just need to consider feeding them another dinner and breakfast on Monday. 

But as far as meals go after the wedding dinner and morning after brunch, am I responsible for stocking all of the groceries for the weekend for everyone? With the older relatives there are a lot of dietary restrictions, and with others it is just picky-ness. 

If I am responsible, that's fine. But how in the world am I supposed to know what & when to feed everyone? I don't want to go out to eat either, I want to enjoy every second of time we have the cabin for. I don't want to leave!!! 

Sorry for the long backstory, but I'm at a loss. I am confused. Please help. Thank you for reading this! 

jhawkins313

Not true. There are three others coming to the wedding but not staying at the cabin because they live in Tennessee. So there are actually 16 people total invited to the ceremony/dinner. 

Not that it really pertains to my question . . . just figured I'd throw it out there.

STARMOON44

Not your question, but 8pm is too late to let people arrive. That's after dinner for some folk and since they're traveling you should let them arrive whenever they want after the house is open. They're family you can still be setting up.

jhawkins313

That's true, but we can't even get in until 4pm. Kind of a bummer. I was hoping to get their welcome bags and other goodies stocked in their rooms, hang our deco, etc. before they get there so it's kind of wedding-ish. 

But you are right, it's family . . . true! 

jhawkins313

And since it is such a late arrival, (and ceremony) our rehearsal isn't until the day of. 

So I didn't even think about feeding people dinner on Friday, I was planning on having snacks. ie veggie trays, deli tray to make sandwiches or something like that. 

hyechica81

i am not sure on the food part you could stock it with basics like eggs milk bread some light snacks and food you would normaly eat and word of mouth it to others if you have any dietary restrictions to bring what you can eat..


if i was a guest at your wedding and staying till monday i would offer to whip up a simple bbq hamburgers hot dogs mac salad potato salad and some fruit for desert its nice to do something for the bride groom, but thats me.

when we rent beach houses with my extended family we all take turns cooking food one night its simple bbq  another night its a cold pasta salad one night we will all head into town and go to a seafood place.

jhawkins313

Well I wish you were coming!  
That is a very nice gesture, I hope someone thinks of that! 

s-aries8990

Can you let them arrive at, maybe 5pm? As I guest, I would be totally ok with you still "sussing up" the place as I was getting in. And, are you kids helpful? Maybe if you see someone coming up the driveway you can have them run the bag up to the room(s) and put them on the bed. Also can you put a makeshift "itinerary" together and send it out after you get a positive RSVP OR call each invite group individually and explain your itinerary to them?

Something kind of like this:

Friday:
5pm arrival - if you would like to come on Friday night, please feel free to "check in" any time after 5pm.
8 pm - snacks, wine, and family time!

Saturday: (are you doing breakfast? Just curious)
6pm - ceremony starts, and dinner immediately following in the dining room

Sunday:
9 am - Brunch.

Monday:
9am - "check out" time, as we need to return the keys by 11am.

OR  You could just call them all and talk to them. It's such a small group, I'm sure you could work something out.

jhawkins313

I love the itinerary. Thank you for that suggestion!!
I'm really into being super organized & planned about this weekend wedding. Except I forgot one major issue - FOOD.  What a moron. I feel so embarrassed. 

I was planning on having snacks and such, as you would if you were having a daytime ceremony. Like when everyone is getting ready together and you have a subway party tray, or something like that. 

this is why I feel so STUPID:

Breakfast on Saturday. My God, the ceremony isn't until 6pm! Dinner around 7-7:30 I would imagine, what the hell am I going to feed these people all day on Saturday!?!?! It never crossed my dumb mind! 

jhawkins313

OR my fiance! He is planning too, he gets part of the dumb blame. 

climbingsingle

I just wanted to say - this sounds like a really fun wedding!! 

I would probably just stock the fridge with some basics. And then I'd also let people know that they can bring other items to eat (assuming there is room in the fridge). I don't think you should have to worry about feeding them every meal. 

lyndausvi

We had a rented house for our wedding (rented by my parents).  We got there Wed before the Sat wedding.  Each day more people arrived with Friday night everyone was there.   We loaded up the house with food and beverages (alcohol and non-alcohol). Mostly snacks, breakfast foods and some stuff for sandwiches.

Breakfast -   Bought a bunch of eggs, pancake mix and bacon.  We all pitched in cooking and cleaning.

Lunches -  on your own. Some people ate sandwiches at the place, others ordered pizza in, still others went out somewhere.

Dinners - Wed before the wedding we went out.  Thursday we cooked at the house.  Night before was our welcome dinner.  That was catered by a deli.   Saturday was the wedding.

jhawkins313

Thank you ClimbingBrideNY!!

And your wedding sounded like it must have been a blast lyndausvi! 

Thanks a million for all of the ideas. Not so stressed anymore! I will just grocery shop for a normal few days worth of stuff. And also ask if anyone has any special requests they need. 

I actually can't wait to cook there! They have fancy pots & pans and dinnerware, etc. 

jules3964

Our wedding is a similar situation (at a big house we are renting for the weekend -- yay for rented house/cabin weddings), except we arrive Friday, the wedding is Saturday, and we leave Sunday. Immediate family is staying the whole weekend, and then we're offering close friends the option to stay Saturday night after the wedding if they want to. Wish we could stay longer, but it's too expensive!

Anyway, we're planning to bring food for the extra time we'll all be there, but in our situation that would only be three meals. I'm thinking we'll just have coffee and maybe muffins provided the morning after, since there won't be much time anyway, and I can see people wanting to go out for brunch.

You may be surprised how many people will bring food, though, knowing the situation. Especially since they're family. My mom already seems pretty into the idea of helping with that.

(Edited because of weird formatting.)

JellyBean52513

A friend of mine had a similar get-together for her college graduation party. She asked us to let her know, if/when we RSVP'ed yes, what food(s) & beverages we liked and would want her to have in stock for us at the house we were staying at for the weekend. All I wanted was wine coolers and skim milk... and there was plenty of both when I got there! We had your typical cookout foods, pizzas delivered, her mom made pasta for us, etc. but it was nice that she provided whatever staples we wanted to have.