I thought it might be wise to note a few things my wife and I learned from planning our own wedding. We had a grand wedding, and we did it with some serious cost-efficiencies (as we later learned).
One of the goals we decided upon was to make the long weekend as memorable as possible. And, with our nuptuals being a destination wedding (Vermont! Moo.) we found that creating many different atmospheres, or scenes, would help create many more memories for ourselves and our guests. But this is not unique to destination weddings…
On the big day (post-hangovers, for some), we had the pre-ceremony on one side of the house, then the ceremony on the great lawn (4th oldest maple in the US), then dinner in a tent (safe, still buffet and intimate) and then dancing in the living room of the house (ok, it was a mansion). Still we were told by many that having a series of “scenes” made the time they spent in those places that much more memorable.
Some good things happened the night before, as well. For the rehearsal dinner, we had everyone come… but all they knew was when to show up and what to wear (semi-formal, black, white and reds colors only). They showed up and entered a foyer where a few of our eccentric friends acted as “fashion advisors” and proceeded to untie the ties of the men and don them with pencil-thin mustaches (eyeliner), loosen-up the hair of the ladies and fit them with oversized roses (cloth/plastic-type, from a craft shop). This set a great precedent of “we’re here to have a goooood time!” Our guests then entered a latin dance party complete with a buffet taco bar, sangria and coronas (read: easy, fun, cheap); and a 3-hour mix of latin music (Buena Vista Social Club, etc. all mixed from an iPod). Then our friends showed them how to cut serious rug.
To top this off, we hired an amateur photographer who showed an impressive portfolio, and got him to discount his services to “go digital” for the first time. We captured all those memories with roughly 3000 raw images that we uploaded to the web for all to view (or purchase), saving our coffee table considerable weight, space and dusting.
“Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you. – Paul Simon
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