Help meeeee D:

zipis1 · June 2013

So I am a bad bride. I'm less than four days away and it just came to my attention (when vendors started asking) that I haven't hashed out much of a day-of timeline for the reception. Everything before that should be fine, but I don't know when to do things like cake-cutting or garter toss (if we do that. FI keeps going back and forth). My contracted time is up until 11pm that night, but if I want to I may extend it to 12am (for an additional fee). I have my photographer for 6 hours starting at 2:30-ish, again, extendable with fee. Before we leave we have to clean up any decorations.

So far this is what I have.

5:00-5:30pm - ceremony
5:30 to 6:30 (??) pictures for us, cocktail hour for guests.
6:30 to ?? - dinner
??
??
10pm - 11pm - start the goodbyes and clean up

WHAT DO I DO!? I thought I had plenty of time but I suddenly feel like it's too short. I want people to have a chance to dance for a fair time, but can I do that? Traditions we want to do:
- first dance
- mother/son father/daughter (negotiable. Our parent's would like it but I feel it'd be boring to guests. If there's a way to make it so everyone can join in or something that'd be cool)
- toasts (does that happen during dinner? I think it did at the weddings I've been to but I didn't really pay attention to the whens

)
- FI MIGHT do garter toss, I'm going to have him decide tonight. After his garter toss, I will not do a bouquet toss but instead say something sweet about my grandparents and their marriage and give it to them.
- Cake cutting.

I don't know where these things go, or when they should go. I don't want to disrupt people throughout the night so I thought about doing the traditiony stuff pretty early on, but friends say that people tend to take the cake-cutting as the cue that the night is basically done and will start leaving soon. So when would be a good time for that? Obviously I'd rather not have everyone think the party's over at 8pm. But technically my time with the photographer is up about 8:30.

Any help is appreciated. I'm terrible at this stuff, absolutely terrible. Which is probably why I didn't think of it when I should have ;_;

AJuliaNJ · June 2013

Does your venue have a typical timeline? The coordinator for our venue was very knowledgeable about these things.

zipis1 · June 2013

Huh. I hadn't thought to ask her. I'll email her and see if she has any suggestions. Thanks!

Sue-n-Kevin · June 2013

Here's my recommendations:

5:00-5:30pm - ceremony
5:30 to 6:30 (??) pictures for us, cocktail hour for guests.
If you are having a grand entrance, do it here after pictures, with bridal party announcement. We then did our first dance. We also did our family dances at this time. We did a Mom/Son at the same time as Dad/daughter and chose a song that fit both situations, "Memories" by Elvis Presley. After that we cut the cake so it could be plated & served as dessert.

6:30 to ?? - dinner this takes about an hour, end at 7:30. Toasts are during dinner.
?? Since the bride & groom are usually done with dinner first, while the guests are eating dessert you can do the bouquet toss & garter toss before dancing opens up for the rest of the evening.
10pm - 11pm - start the goodbyes and clean up

Maggie0829 · June 2013

Everything @Sue-n-Kevin said. Get all the "spotlight" stuff done and over with first. I have been to a lot of weddings where the party portion kept getting interrupted by the spotlight stuff. Like 15 minutes of dancing then first dance, another 15 minutes and then Father/Daugther, another 15 minutes then Mother/Son, etc, etc. It really killed the party atmosphere and after about the third interruption the party really never got going again because people were annoyed.

alithebride · June 2013

befor you start setting up a timeline you need to find you from your venue how long to allow for dinner, cake cutting and service etc.. then go from there. no big deal. they do it all the time.

zipis1 · June 2013

Ok. So this is what I have at this point, cross referencing with a couple vendor ideas (especially photographer. He was quite organized)):

4:45- guests arrive
5:00 - Ceremony starts
5:30 - Wedding party and family pics. Other guests to Pavilion for "cocktail hour" and apps
6:00 - bride and groom pics
6:30 - grand entrance/first dance/family dances
6:45 - Dinner begins/toasts/table visits
7:30 - cake cutting/garter/bouquet thing
7:40 - Dancing
10:00 - last dance/goodbyes
10:20 - clean up

How does that seem?

lisabeats · June 2013

I agree with Stage about putting the tosses later, but otherwise I like Sue's ideas. It just doesn't make sense to me to do the tosses while people are still eating dinner or finishing up dessert. However, I do like getting all the spotlights/intros/etc. over early, I hate to be interrupted once I've already got my boogie on.

zipis1 · June 2013

@StageManager14, my only problem there would be that, techinically, by 9:45 my photographer isn't supposed to be there. He could be, if I wanted to pay the extra, but I'm trying not to. Maybe 8:15pm? I'd have to interrupt the dancing, but just once may not be so bad?

zipis1 · June 2013

Not really. It's not really the toss I'm worried about, since we'll just have the garter toss and not the bouquet. But since I'm giving it to my grandparents rather than tossing it, I feel that I may want a pic of that moment. I think? This is a headache.

Sue-n-Kevin · June 2013

I think you need to move up your cake cutting if this is your dessert. I'd lump it in with the first dance/family dances so the caterer has time to get the cake served right after dinner, or leave it on the cake table for people to pick up.

QueerFemme · June 2013

zipis1 said:

Not really. It's not really the toss I'm worried about, since we'll just have the garter toss and not the bouquet. But since I'm giving it to my grandparents rather than tossing it, I feel that I may want a pic of that moment. I think? This is a headache.

Often, the toss and the garter is a signal to guests "ok, not much more to come, it's ok to bail out now". If you aren't doing a bouquet toss, I would give it to your grandparents privately (i.e. not make a big scene or announcement about it) at any time, and have your photographer capture some photos, and do the garter later in the evening, as Stage suggested.

cmcole4509 · June 2013

If you don't want to pay the photographer extra and there are only one or two specific photos you would like, then maybe someone that is a family member or friend has a nice camera that they could take pictures of? Even if you didn't ask them, a lot of people bring cameras and/or camera phones to weddings, so you may very will likely end up with a lot of pictures besides the professional photographer ones.

Help meeeee D:

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