Logistics of getting married in a park

jilybeans4

Well, wedding is less than 4 weeks out. As I'm ironing out details, I am really regretting getting married in a park. Its just a city park, and we rented chairs. But there are lot of logistics to this such as:Who sets up/tears down the chairs?We are getting married Sunday of Labor Day weekend...the rental place is only open Saturday and Tuesday, so we have to pick them up early, bring them back late, and there is no setup/teardown available. We also probably have to rent a uhaul or something to pick them up/bring them back since we don't have anyone in town with a truck who will be there all the way until Tuesday.Did any of you have park weddings? What did you do? Who helped, or did you just pay a company to do it all?We are on a budget, so spending hundreds of dollars on chairs was out of the question. Now I wish we just did a church wedding or ceremony at the reception venue. Too late now though!Thanks!

lyndausvi

we did not have a wedding in a park.  but we still had to rent all the chairs.  We paid someone to take care of all of it for me.   There was no way I was going to take care of it and I certainly was not going to ask any of our family and friends.

tidetravel

Do you have a couple friends/family members that would  be willing to set up the chairs for you?  If not, I would look into hiring a DOC. I think you can rent pickup trucks by the hour from places like home depot and lowes

danieliza1127

Well I guess it's too late to tell you that you should have thought of all this when you made the decision to do it this way...Several years ago I was a BM in a wedding at a place that had no set-up/tear down service available.  The groomsmen came early and set up all of the chairs, then went and got changed into their tuxes.  Afterwards, we all stayed and helped load up all the chairs while the guests went to the reception.  Well I think we did pictures, then put up all the chairs.  Basically your options are do it yourselves with the help of your wedding party, ask your wedding party to do it, or hire someone to do it.

lyndausvi

Dani - you just reminded me of my brother's wedding.  The reception did not have setup/breakdown.   There was a 3 hours gag and the WP was told we were going to the locations to take pictures. Once we got there we were summoned inside to setup of the reception.   OMG - I was pissed.  Actually we were all pissed.  Here we were all dressed up moving table,s chairs, putting on tablecloths, centerpieces, etc.I think all of us being pissed was more from them not telling us than the actual work. Funny thing is all my brother/SIL would have had to do was mention to my parents that we (and them for that matter) had to setup the reception and they would have hired someone without complaint. 

Golfer'sLady

Honestly, you need to hire people to do this (whether professionally or call in a favor and pay friends/family who aren't guests at the wedding).We rented everything, from forks to the tent, and the rental company delivered and set up everything. Then, came after the wedding, broke it all down and took it back to the rental company.For parking, we hired valet.

jilybeans4

*sigh* I just don't know how people get married without breaking the budget. If we have to pay $500 just for chairs/setup, how does anyone have a cheap wedding? I'm making some calls and I think I found a place that will do setup/teardown. It breaks our budget, but it may be worth it. I really, really dont want our wedding party involved in setting things up and taking them down, but it doesn't seem like things are going to work out otherwise (unless we hire someone). These are the sorts of details I know I should have figured out sooner. I am NOT good at thinking things through! This is why I hate wedding planning

Golfer'sLady

I think that sounds like a good plan. Even if you could pay someone by the hour, like movers or a neighbor with his friends, to show up and get it done. Better than making you or your guests do it!

FutureMrs.McC

This might be a really dumb idea depending on your guests and length of your ceremony but what if you didn't have chairs at all.  I'm thinking something very casual (Sex and the City like, when Miranda married Steve).  Personally, I would have no problem standing for a 15min ceremony.  If that's not an option, you definitely need to hire someone.   

AngelaOct11

We are getting married in a park in 5 weeks :-)  The rental place is setting up and taking down the chair at an extra fee.  To us it was worth it and we had the money in the budget.  If they didn't do set up we were going to find other people to hire to set up the ceremony site. 

diva1397

I was married in a church, but had my reception in the church parish hall.  Although the church staff did set up the chairs and tables, it was still hassle to get the decorations set up and figure out catering stuff (we had our reception catered by a local pizza place).  It was even more tricky since we had an 11:00am wedding two days after Christmas! In the end, we hired a fantastic DOC who took care of set-up, and hired servers from the restaurant to serve and bus tables.  It was so worth it for it to be taken care of, and for my family not to have to do it.