I was the matron of honor at a BBF’s wedding where I had to ask the bride’s dad and his table to get up and move, as they were sitting on what was going to be the dance floor. He stayed for the first dance with his D and then he and his whole table left. It was very awkward for me to ask them to move so the dance floor was available. I believe their table was the only one that was placed over the dance floor. The wedding and reception were lovely, but asking them to move was quite awkward.
That sounds like very poor planning, @HImom!
Yea, it was really strange, since the friend is a very detail-oriented person. Maybe they seated them there so he and the table would leave so her mom (who was still frosty after their divorce a decade prior) could enjoy the rest of the reception. I don’t know.
My daughter’s boyfriend was at a wedding this past weekend where there wasn’t even enough seating for the ceremony. There were quite a few people standing in the back and along the sides of the venue. Same with cocktail hour. This was a stylistic choice, rather than lack of planning, and he said it was just miserable. My niece’s wedding had very limited seating at the cocktail hour and it detracted from the great food because eating it while standing would have been very difficult.
They might have counted on more people not attending… always risky!
For the wedding this weekend, it was a decision only to have the immediate families and elderly guests seated, almost everyone else had to stand.
zoosermom, that sounds awful. My cousin had an outdoor wedding where we all had to stand in grass facing uphill with our high heels sinking into the dirt while the minister droned on and on and on about the animals in Noah’s ark procreating. OTOH she had the best rehearsal dinner ever. Everyone was invited and they had a pizza and a fantastic rock band. Such fun!
In a wedding situation where where equipment is being rented - rather than being provided by the venue - they rent out the chairs with a charge per chair. Maybe folks are trying to save money by renting fewer seats? If so, doesn’t seem like a good place to cut costs.
I went to one wedding where the “bar” was an aluminum canoe filled with beer, wine and soda. The music was programmed by the bride and groom onto their computer. The reception was in a nice tent set up lakeside. Catering truck was parked outside the tent, so you couldn’t see it.
One of the most fun weddings I ever attended.
a live band not a DJ!
Can you put your finger on what made it so fun? Was it that everyone was relaxed and not stressed? Was it that you liked the people you were hanging out with? Was it that there was no internal pressure to be impressed?
I think sometimes is the venue is too fancy and/or everything is too perfect, people start to notice the tiny, insignificant flaws. David Foster Wallace’s essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” about a luxury cruise, does a beautiful job of analyzing this phenomenon.
nottelling, is that to anyone in particular?
@youdon’tsay – sorry, it was in response to post 88, about the wedding by the lake with the ice-filled canoe as the bar. He said it was the most fun wedding ever, and I just wondered if he could articulate what made it so fun. It really does sound wonderful.
nottelling - I think it was a lot of things. But the low-key approach, not over the top, not trying to be the picture-perfect wedding was a huge part of it. Concentration was on having a good time, not on being perfect and making the right impression.
I’ve been to events – small ones and big ones alike – where I’ve thought, “This is going to look a lot more fun on the Instagram pictures than it actually is.” It is often hard to identify why that is with one event and not another.
Bad wedding stories: I was standing up as a bridesmaid for a girlfriend (I was in my early 20’s). I fell very sick on Friday - I remember it well as I was home watching the coverage of the Laurie Dann murders in Winnetka. But I was determined to go on and not let on to my friend. The wedding was on Saturday, and as I was standing up on the altar, I could feel myself blacking out. I was able to communicate this to the other bridesmaid, and she was able to sort of drag me off the altar into a backroom, where I collapsed and came to when a nice little old nun gave me smelling salts and put cold cloths on my neck (dripping all over my silk dress, but that was the least of my worries). I was sooo embarrassed.
Everybody probably thought you partied too hard at the rehearsal dinner, @Pizzagirl. 
Another wedding thread???
S’s wedding was great because it was exactly what they wanted, and because they had many of their friends there for 3 days, they got to spend a lot of time with them rather than the quick fly-by that happens at so many weddings.
I think weddings go better if there is a wedding planner/coordinator- and these don’t have to be hugely expensive. That frees up the parents and wedding couple to relax and enjoy their guests. They don’t have to worry about the timeline, whether flowers are in the right place, etc. We went to my niece’s wedding two weeks ago (2 brides) and it was not as fun as it could have been because the other bride’s mother was frantically running all over the place trying to do everything and her bridezilla daughter was close to a meltdown. Her father (divorced and not on good terms with his ex) actually fainted and had a small seizure right after the ceremony. Ambulance came, but he was OK, fortunately.
Elimination of drama seems to be a key to a fun, happy event.
^^Wow!
I really want to go to that canoe wedding. If it wasn’t 3.5 hours away and in another country, we’d have my son’s reception on the beach at our cottage and do something similar!
So what is a $$$ charge range for wedding planner/coordinators? Rather than getting one from the get go , can you just hire someone for that last week or whatever to make sure the last minute things get attended to?? sounds like a great idea but not one that budget conscious couples can consider???