I cannot believe our big day is less than 3 weeks away! I am freaking a little bit about small details now that I have the big items out of the way. My concern right now is guests. We have 35 guests attending our wedding with groups arriving Wed, Thursday, and Friday. The basic run down of events is:
Wed: Downtown Las Vegas/Binions for dinner with 5 other couples. This is friends and my sister/brother in law.
Thursday night: Hosting Happy Hour at Koi followed by bachelorette/bachelor parties. At this point there will be 19 guests in vegas (not counting us).
Friday: Hosting Double Decker Bus Tour from 5 to 7. At this point ALL of our guests are in vegas. Here is where I am stumped - I had sent out information about making dinner reservations, show information etc. We are getting questions about what WE are doing that night. I am feeling a little guilty about not committing to something with guests that have just arrived on Friday.
Concerns - the friday group is going to be ready to party and I do NOT want either one of us hungover for the wedding. second, the friday arrivals are mixed so we couldnt just go to dinner with the Friday people. and third, there are lot of FI's siblings arriving on Friday (and my parents) and I dont want them to feel like we snubbed them?!
I was tempted to say we go have a solo dinner together and meet up with everyone later wherever they area at? But I am not sure that is realistic. Should I organize a dinner location for Friday night? I dont want to feel like we have to pay though and I am not sure where to suggest with that many poeple. I do know that my friends that are all arriving on Wednesday have already made reservations for themseleves Friday night.
We could plan something with some of FI's siblings for Sunday night (many are staying) but we could be exhausted by that time.
What would you do? Thoughts?
TIA!
Molly
Re: Spending time with guests???!! Advice needed.
I should add that we not hosting Wed. night. This is just a fun night out with our friends that we all planned together. Anything that we are hosting we tried to do between the 5 and 7 pm so people could go do their own thing in the evenings if they wanted. It seems that our group does not really want to go off on their own!
Maybe my opinion doesn't matter much since I'm not so far along in my planning, but personally I think it would seem natural for the bride and groom to be busy doing last minute preparations and/or relaxing/gearing up for the big day on the day before. It looks like you've been really accommodating to your guests and tried your best to let them enjoy the experience with you, yet give them the option of exploring on their own.
If your guests are really wanting to bond before the day, why not spend time with them in a productive way by inviting them to help you out with any final, small preparations? That way you get to do your do and they get to feel even more like a part of the big day. Or, if you're all set, why not invite people to join you for a little pampering/swim/something relaxing that doesn't require you to stress over extra planning or budgeting.
We were in town Thursday through Tuesday, with the wedding on Friday. We scheduled events and invited everyone Thursday night through Saturday morning. After that, we made plans more or less individually to meet up with people for dinner, hanging out, shopping, whatever. Between the formally scheduled "wedding events" and the hanging out, we saw every single one of our 40-odd guests outside the reception, most multiple times. We scheduled brunch the day after the wedding relatively late (11:00) so we had time to sleep in, but no one really needed more recovery time than that.
Don't overplan. Have a rough idea of what's going on, be flexible, and keep your phone on.
This is a belated married bio, with no reviews yet because I'm lazy.
Sometimes I feel like people think that brides are delicate little flower princesses who get all dressed up and pretty for one special moment of their dreams, when really they're just normal people who just happen to be getting married. Things shouldn't have to be sugar-coated for grown-ass women. -mstar284
FF Chart
Sunday- meet n greet (dinner)
Monday- Hens/Bucks nights (dinner)
Wednesday- Wedding woohoo!
Thursday- Brunch
Friday- Grand Canyon Tour (day)
We are just going to go with the flow on the other days/nights. If peole ask to catch up or a group of guests are planning on going out together we will probably tag along. I also know both mums will be getting together and organising peole as well lol! They wont be able to help themselves!
We figure we owe it to our guests to catch up (since they have come so far) and there are also a lot of guests coming that live in other parts of the world who we only get to see once or twice a year anyway so we definately want to spend time with them.
I think its fine if you want to dinner alone one night our plan is this
Wednesday Night - Bridal shower for family close friends
Thursday Night - In suite cocktail party followed by bachelor/bachelorette
Friday day - we plan to rent a cabana at the pool for people to recover and we will just try to stop by when we can. Sort of an open door thing.
Friday night - rehearsal and rehearsal dinner (BP and family only
Saturday - Wedding
Sunday - we are leaving in the afternoon some time.