At home reception question

Sklenaral

Hi everyone Hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day!

I was wondering how some of you did or are doing your AHR invites and decorations. I was kind of thinking a message in a bottle for the invites to keep the beach vibe but unsure if its too overboard? Its going to be more of a celebration then a wedding reception but is it okay to wear the wedding dress for a couple of hours? or should I just wear a nice dress? I was reading some  blogs on other boards and some say yes and some no. What about a Cake or first dance or father/mother dances? I'm kind of lost about what is okay to do.

breaness

I wore my wedding dress to ours and like you, it wasn't a traditional wedding reception. Everyone was happy to see me in the dress!

For our AHR invites we did something that set the vibe as pretty laid back. We also tended to stay away from the beach theme since it felt silly doing a beach theme in Fall in Baltimore. We just used the wedding colors and left it at that.

As for the rest-- do whatever makes you happy. We did everything as we wanted to. We had cupcakes instead of cake (I was fundamentally against a cake anyway, because I wanted variety so we did cupcakes), we weren't going to do any dances but the piano guys (we had dueling pianos) kind of conned us into having one

mauidandy

Agree, it's whatever you want it to be, there are no rules!

I sent out invitations, wore my dress and we had a wedding cake. We ate good food, visited with friends and family, cut the cake and then danced the night away. It was a blast. I am so glad I wore my dress, the people who didn't make it to HI loved seeing it in person and I got to wear it again. Do what makes you happy!

jessj336

We are having our AHR at a venue that looks like a Tuscan Country home so we will not be having anything beach related. To go along with the Tuscan theme, the invitations have a sunflower on them and the flowers will be a rustic sunflower arrangement to fit the venue. I am going to wear my dress again and we are having cake since my mom wanted it again and she is paying for the AHR.

kimmykupcakes

We are having ours in our backyard and are carrying the old Hawaii vibe into. We Are also building a tiki bar in our basement. I'll wear my dress, FI will wear his wedding attire and our wedding party are wearing their dresses. We will have an open bar, cupcakes and appetizers. Our invitations look like vintage Hawaii postcards.

Tanq&Tonic

Like these ladies said, the AHR is anything you want it to be.  We threw a fairly formal reception with a formal invitation suite, hotel ballroom, and social hour / dinner / dancing.  I wore my dress for the first half, and changed into an evening gown for the 2nd.  We had cake, speeches, dances, and the whole 9 yards.  It was important to our parents and the guests seemed to enjoy it.  Almost nothing from HI was repeated except my dress & DH's suit.  We even changed colors because they wanted something 'redder' and 'better luck'.  I know some etiquette police would say what we did is a horrible thing to do, but it worked for us, our social circle, and frankly, I would have felt badly if half of our guests flew internationally just to have a BBQ at home -- KWIM?  We had about 450 people show up, so it turned into a much bigger affair than the wedding (and much more stressful!)