Stolen: Rate your wedding

[amaranth]

Stolen from MMM. Rate your wedding compared to the others you've been to, be honest, and tell me why.

I just attended my most favorite wedding ever, so my bar is set to a new high. 

[amaranth]

I'll go first. Mine was below average, but I knew it would be and it was a budget decision. We had our reception in the church gym and due to my parents' beliefs, there was no alcohol. I think most people left early to go have their own booze-allowed party elsewhere. lol. We didn't serve a sit down dinner and to most people that is a big deal.

That said, we did still have a dance, some good food, and it was a really special and fun day. People played games at tables and at least 100 people stayed till midnight, so they obviously weren't all miserable. I've been to many more boring weddings so I know it wasn't the worst by any means.

[Deleted]

It's hard for me to compare my wedding to others because we had a destination wedding in Las Vegas. There were only 22 people at out wedding, including me and my H. It definitely wasn't a traditional, big wedding like most of my friends do.

When you look at our pictures, you can't tell we were in Vegas. We got married in a beautiful, non cheesy chapel by a minister. We didn't do a typical reception though. We had dinner in a private room at a restaurant in the piazza of the Venetian hotel. We splurged on yummy food, cake, and favors. There was no dancing or a DJ. We did have live (free) music, care of the string quartet playing in the piazza outside our private room. I'm sure some people thought it would be more of a party, but that just isn't my style or what I like.

My family and close friends had a blast at my wedding, because they love Vegas and used it as a vacation opportunity. We spent the whole week celebrating with them. My ILs hated it though. They are homebodies from a small town, so they felt uncomfortable the whole time we were there.

I wouldn't change a thing about it!

[wanderingenough]

Sounds like the first few of us didn't have "traditional" wedding receptions.

Mine was a church wedding followed by a nice dinner in the private room of a restaurant. We only had 50 people total and that was mostly family. We decided we just wanted a really nice dinner and evening for the people who would still be in our life in 10 years. H and I had a first dance, but that was it in terms of dancing. We also didn't serve alcohol per H's parents' request. I loved my wedding and would rate it a 5-6, but have definitely been to more spectacular weddings. Honestly, all things considered, I'd probably go cheaper and smaller now and have more money for the honeymoon.

[Deleted]

I rated mine below average. I don't think my guests enjoyed my wedding much. The gap between the ceremony and reception was too long, not helped by the crappy amateur photographer who kept having hissy fits.

Also, it was a cash bar. In my defense, most of our relatives don't drink, and I hadn't been to a lot of weddings before that. Somehow I didn't think it would be such a buzzkill. Lol. But H's friends weren't pleased. Now I do wish we had an open bar. Also, the DJ played really obscure songs that no one knew despite the fact that I gave him a list of songs a month in advance and he assured me he had them.

ETA: But the food was good.  lol

[katespade]

Are we taking behind the scenes drama into consideration, or just overall guest experience during the actual event?

[grover]

Church mass, followed by reception at a hall.
Sit down, family-style dinner, open bar

[estrellita]

I said above average. I had a blast and people still talk about it occasionally. I think one of the things that set it apart was how personal everything was. We had a friend get ordained to do the ceremony, almost everything was made by someone (aunt did the bouquets and boutonnieres and veil, mom made the shawls we had, mom and sister made most of the paper stuff, H and he parents made the card box, etc). The ceremony was short and sweet, completely personalized, the music was totally us and non-traditional, things like that. They also really liked our popcorn bar. I think the only things I heard were some food complaints (can't please everyone even with 3 options plus they were nice enough to make just 2 vegan meals). We had a couple kegs and wine, and anything else was cash. That's pretty typical around here (I know back on TK the mention of a cash bar was like a bat signal for the crazies!!). But everyone loved the venue too.. I'm just so happy with how things turned out!

[estrellita]

Oh and if anyone wants the stats I think about 160 people came, plated dinner (3 options as I said before, chicken, beef and pasta), cupcakes for dessert, partial hosted/cash bar, assigned seating, all at the reception hall (no church wedding), March. Pretty typical reception with cocktail hour, seated dinner, speeches, first and parents dances, then dancing and drinking.

[mac08]

I picked above average.  I had an awesome time, and I know most of our guests did too.  Many of them said it was the most fun wedding they ever went to, but it was over five years ago and lots more of our friends have gotten married since, and had equally as fun weddings.  

I am mostly happy with our wedding, but would change a few small things if I had to do it again.  The most important things were great- good food, good drinks, good DJ.  Everyone was drinking heavily and dancing all night, then we continued the party in the hotel bar long into the early AM hours.  

The cake, flowers, table decor could have been better., but who really cares about that after the fact anyway.   And our pastor was a terrible public speaker and the ceremony was not great.  I only got married in the church to please my mother, and if I could do it again I would have a quick ceremony immediately before the reception at the same venue. 

[MrsMB]

I would say mine was average. I got a wedding I had always dreamed of: Church wedding at the church I grew up in & Southern reception at an old Southern mansion with a string quartet playing in the background. We had wine and champagne, but no liquor or beer. There wasn't dancing either...which apparently pissed people off because we are dancers. (We didn't want to be SHOW MONKEYS at our own wedding. We have all the time in the world to do dancing elsewhere.) It was beautiful and very Southern which I loved. Bur I could see people having more fun at weddings that were more of a dance/loud music reception.

[anyastroud]

My wedding was fucking awesome! I always think I'm a little bias than when I ask people that attended they agree that it was pretty rock'in. We had such a good time it was like one huge  party. We had a lot of corky/nerdy things at our wedding. Our officiate read out vows out of a star wars art book. When it was time for the rings the little chime from Zelda when you find stuff played. It was funny. Our ceremony was only 8 minutes long and we played the Star Wars death march when we walked back up the isle. lol Can you tell Dh is a Star wars nerd. We also had a zombie bride and groom cake topper. and my guest book was the necronomicon from evil dead. Oh and I wore a red wedding dress. So I would say that it was pretty non traditional Oh and my husband Rick rolled me during our first dance lol what an ass.  



POOF

[bk1]

I would do my wedding completely different now.


It was fine.

Short ceremony in the middle of the atternoon. At my in laws church. Cake and punch after. Cookout at my in laws after that. Had a friend playing guitar and singing at the inlaws. No dance. Maybe 50 people at the wedding and 30 at the inlaws?

If I were to do it over it would have been even smaller, outside, no tuxs or anything, very casual and intimate.

I also wanted to get married in the fall but we ended up getting married in June.

Basically we were engaged over 2 years. We waited for me to graduate college (DH was traveling for work at the time) and we got married the month after I graduated. His work schedule he had summers off and fall/winter was his busiest time so it didn't work to get married then.

I felt like my whole wedding was a "finally let's do this" moment.

Even with all that time I didn't pick my wedding music until the day before. I am very much a procrastinator.

[MrsMB]

Nov 17, 2015 10:59:10 GMT -5 bk1 said:

I would do my wedding completely different now.

Even with all that time I didn't pick my wedding music until the day before. I am very much a procrastinator.

My baby brother called me the morning of his wedding, "hey, can you pick out the ceremony music and call the DJ....just pick what you think sounds nice." He had one request, the theme song for the "peanuts" cartoon. I made that happen and added Cannon in D and things like that.

[anyastroud]

Nov 17, 2015 10:59:10 GMT -5 bk1 said:

.

Even with all that time I didn't pick my wedding music until the day before. I am very much a procrastinator.

A friend of ours DJ ed and he was putting together our list on his laptop. His house was broken in to 4 days before our wedding and the laptop was stolen. We had to rush to remember what all was on it and some stuff got missed. I'm kinda sad about that.

[tacocat]

I said above average even though I would do it all different. We were young and hadn't been to many weddings. I would invite way less people and get married in a different month. It was still an awesome party even though the air conditioner pretty much froze up so it was so hot at the reception. Overall it was still a really good time, but I would have it differently now.

[HoneySpider]

Our wedding was a lot of fun....I'm sure it wasn't THE BEST EVER but people really enjoyed it. It was a big party. Our reception was on a riverboat (which, people liked the unique factor) and we had a full, open bar the whole time. Drinks (and many shots) were flowing. We had a buffet dinner which I know some people hate but whatever, I love buffets over a plated dinner and the food was delicious. The food/booze was definitely a priority for us as was the overall reception experience. We had a dance floor, people could go outside (although not too much since it was raining on and off) and there were cool sites along the way (went up and down the rivers in Pittsburgh). Since we had a smaller wedding (~85 people) we were able to seat everyone on the main floor so the 2nd floor was good for the kids to run around and blow bubbles over the balcony (and I got to throw my bouquet from the 2nd story).

We had the ceremony in the chapel on the campus of my undergrad alma mater. It was really awesome. There's a lot of competition to get the wedding slots and because of the time we got, we ended up with a gap between ceremony and reception. Most people didn't mind because they were from OOT and used it as a chance to do some exploring/sightseeing. We really tried to accommodate our guests in terms of providing transportation, giving them info on things to do, etc.

We did a lot of DIY projects to personalize the wedding and kept certain things minimal - we did very simple (and cheap) centerpieces, instead of table numbers we did our favorite sports teams, and our seating chart was a baseball lineup card we made. The bouquets were on the smaller side, we printed programs ourselves, things like that. I know it wasn't the fanciest or most "Pinterest" wedding (thank goodness Pinterest wasn't around back then, TK was bad enough!) but it was very "us" and it was very fun. Everyone has their different things that are most important and they splurge on and for us, it was giving our guests (and us, obviously) a really awesome reception experience.

[estrellita]

HoneySpider I don't like when I can tell a bride has gone overboard on Pinterest personally! H's cousin's wife did this. I mean, it was a cute wedding, but she even admitted she got all her ideas from Pinterest. I don't think it's bad to get some ideas there (I did) but then make it your own, KWIM? Same person also does lots of Pinterest inspired pics with their son. I do have to say though that their baby in pumpkin pic turned out pretty well!

[ewall]

Ours was the best. People still talk about it. We had a perfect day

[HoneySpider]

estrellita Yeah I think there are some cute ideas, I just hate when people go overboard! Some things really are not necessary despite what the internet says. Of course I can't think of specific things

[luv2rn4fun]

Our wedding was AMAZING! I would say it's the best and everyone has said it was a very beautiful day but I'll just go the humble route and say it was above average!

We got married in June, on a golf course, in SoCal. Weather was nice, not too hot and not cold. We had about 90 people so pretty intimate. One of my favorite parts is that my brother was our officiant so it was very personal (DH and I also wrote personal letters and vows to each other). It was an open bar all night, food was great, dancing was great (everyone was on the dance floor), and the cake was delicious!

If I had to do it over again I would do things a little different. Our wedding was crazy expensive (all in all upwards of $30k, including dress, hair/makeup, everything except honeymoon which was $1500 because we got free flights to Kauai and my parents gave us their timeshare (oceanfront view) for a week). I did a ton of work myself (invitations, menu, place cards, seating assignments, all things paper and party favors) to cut down costs but it was still way too much money. My dad wanted the day to be spectacular so he really pushed for us to get married at this particular course since we loved it so much (another golf course nearby would have been 1/2 price but the reception would have been in a "barn" vs. formal ballroom). Our venue was/is average for SoCal so it's not like we got married at the Ritz....speaking of...there's a golf course that you can see Catalina Island and I thought it was "perfect" (our first date was nearby and we talked about Catalina, I took DH to Catalina for his first time to celebrate his bday our first year dating, beautiful venue and ceremony site). Told my dad and he didn't say a word (although was likely silently pooping his pants). He let me research on my own to find out that a Thurs night wedding for our guest list would be no less than $80k. I laughed when I saw the prices...it very easily came off our list!

[katiek]

I picked above average. We had a church wedding that wasn't too long but had good hymns, haha. We didn't have a gap, just drove to the reception place and the guests had drinks while we took some pictures, then dinner. Our reception was at a restaurant and everyone raved about the food. We had the option of beef, chicken, or fish, and the portion sizes were good. We had the BEST cupcakes for dessert.

Reasons people may not have liked it: it was on a Friday, the church and reception were 1/2 hour drive away, we only served wine, and we had no dancing. But I think everyone had fun, and my ILs still talk about how it was the best wedding ever.

[Blue Moon]

Nov 17, 2015 21:02:18 GMT -5 ewall said:

Ours was the best. People still talk about it. We had a perfect day

Awesome!  I'd classify mine as the same.  If anyone has seen any depictions of North Jersey weddings on TV, well, mine was exactly like that.  I'm sure it'd be seen as over the top for many in other parts of the country, but it is normal in my group of friends and family.  

ETA: A picture of the venue, which I just fell in love with.  I HATED the stuffy carpeted ballrooms that most of the places I looked at had.  This room was exactly what I wanted.