Guest perspective: Garden ceremony and fancy banquet hall reception

I was in a wedding a couple of weekends ago that I wanted to comment on because I learned a lot about things I want to do differently for my own wedding.

The Details: Wedding ceremony took place in a public garden. The reception took place in a castle-looking banquet hall in the middle of the city. The ceremony ended up starting a little late at 10:15AM and went for half an hour. Cocktail hour was from 11AM until noon. Reception was from noon until 3:30PM. Total guest count was ~125.

The Good:

• The garden was beautiful. The weather was as perfect as could be for the end of July, and it wasn't too hot because it took place in the morning rather than the afternoon.

• The bride looked picture-perfect. She found a picture of her dream dress online, but it was out of season at every bridal store so she had to custom-order it. So worth it though. She looked like a princess.

• The bride and groom wrote their own vows, and they were very sweet and reflective of their unique personalities. Quite a few people teared up.

• Open-bar that came with the reception package. They were quite generous with the pours!

• The bride is extremely picky about food (she only likes "kid" food), so it was tough for them to pick a menu, but they had a mac and cheese bar, and it went over extremely well.

• They spent about $2k on flowers, and they were gorgeous. The entire reception hall was decorated with great taste.

• Their wedding cake was delicious. Lemon cake with cheesecake mousse and fresh raspberries. Yum!

The Not-So-Good: Unfortunately, there was quite a bit to write about here from a guest perspective.

• Because the ceremony was in a public garden, they were not allowed to put any chairs on the grass. Therefore, everyone was standing for the ceremony, and it was tough for a lot of the guests to see or hear anything.

• No free parking at the reception hall. There was a parking lot nearby that cost $18 for the 4 hours that we were there.

• To offset the cost of the parking, the couple rented a shuttle to go from a park-and-ride lot to their ceremony and reception venue about half an hour away. Unfortunately, the shuttle bus broke down on the way back from the reception, and guests had to wait 15 min on the side of the highway for a new one to come.

• My fiance and I did not like the food. The non-mac-and-cheese buffet was just alright, but the hors d'oeuvres were terrible. The bride and groom had been talking up the food for quite some time, so this was disappointing.

• They decided to DIY their music w/ an iPod and asked a friend to emcee. The friend did a great job emceeing, but their music playlist did not include much dance music, and the dance floor was pretty empty as a result. They played mostly oldies with a few dance classics thrown in. Then there were some random songs that the couple liked, like some country songs (which no one could dance to) and even "Shiny" from Moana. The transitions between songs were awkward on the dance floor, because there was always about a 10 second pause where one song was trailing off and the other hadn't begun yet.

• The dance floor was really small for the amount of people in attendance. For the songs where people were actually dancing, a lot of people ended up dancing on carpet.

• The staff did a bad job of passing out wedding cake. Only half my table got cake initially, and my fiance had to chase down a waiter to get a slice.

• We had to be out of the reception hall at 4PM exactly because that's when the next wedding's cocktail hour started. As a result, the reception felt very rushed, and the staff were frenetic at the end trying to get everything out for the next wedding. At 3:30PM, the staff were cleaning up all the tables. At 3:50PM when most guests were leaving, the staff was setting up the linens and centerpieces for the next wedding. At 4PM, when the last people were leaving, guests for the next wedding were showing up for cocktail hour. It was an awkward ending.

Take-Home Points:

• If you're DIYing the music for the reception, think carefully about what kind of music your guests will dance to, rather than what kind of music you like to listen to. I was on the fence about getting a DJ before, but I am definitely getting one now.

• Bigger dance floor please!

• Pick your reception hall carefully and make sure they give you enough time for your reception. At least make sure they're not rushing your guests out.

• If you're having a mid-day reception, keep in mind your guests might not be in a party mood and you might have to work harder to get people drinking and dancing.

• Make sure you assign certain bridal party members to take home gifts and cards. This was confusing at the end, and the venue was rushing us out, so it got chaotic.

• For important communications to your bridal party, send out an email with all the details you need to convey so they can refer back to it. The bride kept sending out important messages in our Facebook group chat, and they would immediately get buried. As a result, no one knew what was going on, and she was getting annoyed at having to answer the same questions over and over again.