Beating the Waiting Game pt 3

I've address two major waiting periods at weddings that need to be carefully planned for. Here's a recap.

The three most frustrating times of waiting are

• Time waiting at the reception for you to arrive
• Waiting in line for food
• Waiting for open dancing to begin

Today I'll be addressing the last in the series. It's probably the most important of the three because it defines the difference between just a dinner and a full-fledged party. Let's dig in...

Waiting for Open Dancing to Begin

How it kills the party: So you've had dinner, listened to toasts, saw a video about the bride and groom, watched as the pounded each other with cake and you're just about ready to get your dance on. BUT WAIT! Now it's the first dance. And then the father daughter dance. And then the Mother son dance. Oh, and a tribute dance to the parents of the bride and groom. And let's not forget the wedding party dance. Fabulous! The bride and groom love honoring people in their lives, but when you aren't one of those people, this succession of dances turns into a huge bore. Unless you're performing choreographed dances, think about how long you're making your guests watch you sway back and forth. Chances are, they are going to check out early if you don't keep them engaged.

How to get the party started: I'm not suggesting choreographing dances here. And if you'd like to honor people, that's awesome. But lets look where you can cut out some of the dead time that makes the night drag on.

• Love Story Videos/Slide shows- show them while people are eating. As soon as the last people have gone through the line, get it up on the screen.
• Toasts- These can be done at a lot of different points in the night. I would suggest doing them right before or after the video/slide show (if you have one), because you already have everyone's attention (side note on toasts: don't let the whole bridal party give a toast at the reception, do that at the rehearsal dinner).
• Cutting the Cake - do it right when you get there. Usually the cake is off in some corner so it's easier to get it out of the way first. This also gives whoever is cutting the cake more time to get that done before people are hankering for dessert.
• Scatter dances to honor different people throughout the night (without switching gears too much in the music) and include other guests in them (invite all fathers and daughters out for the father daughter dance) or find other meaningful ways to honor those people.
• If you really want to have all the different dances, consider making a slide show with pictures to the song of choice to be shown while you dance so that there is more than just swaying to be watched.
  

The important thing is that someone is keeping things moving. This can be a coordinator, DJ, or a host couple. This person should have a good understanding for the order of events. Avoiding a lot of downtime for set-up is important. That's why doing toasts and slide-shows while people are eating is a great idea so that they aren't focused on what is taking so long to set-up. Starting the dancing right when you serve dessert helps to keep guests distracted while they aren't a part of the action.

Get the party started early and keep it going.

If you can eliminate the frustration guests usually face, it will make your wedding truly a night to remember for everyone who attended. Thanks for reading!

Beating the Waiting Game pt 2

In my last post I started talking about one of the biggest mood killers at weddings: waiting around. There are three times in a wedding that can really kill the party and give guests a negative attitude. I talked about the time between the ceremony and reception in my last post (be sure to check it out). This post I'm going to talk about something that can make many people very crabby, being hungry.

Waiting In Line For Food

How it kills the mood: You get through the ceremony, drive to the reception, wait for the couple to arrive, cut the cake, and then dinner is served... except you have to wait for all of the 200 other guests to get their good first.

Buffet style receptions are especially common here in Nebraska. Most people believe they are cheaper by default (not always true, check with your caterer for their pricing on sit-down v. buffet). One thing that is true is that a poorly planned buffet can bring a hopping party to a screeching halt. Trying to corral 250 guests through a single buffet line takes a considerable amount of time. Usually first people are done before the last even make it through.

How to beat it: My first piece of advice is not to let the line build up. Ask the host couples or DJ to dismiss the tables as the line dies down. The second thing you should think about is the number of people you're serving 75-100, you'll probably be ok with one single-sided buffet, but any more and you need to start considering multiple buffet lines to allow more people to get food at once. Think about the space. Does it make sense to service different sides of the room with different buffet lines? Anything thing to make it go smoother and faster will help keep your guests happy.

What you really want to avoid is people being uncomfortable, i.e. hungry and standing in uncomfortable shoes. If you have a generous cocktail hour, it helps beat the hunger. Having tables wait to be dismissed until the line dies a little helps to keep them off their feet. These small touches make a big difference.

But most definitely find out about sit-down dinner pricing and logistics. It doesn't make any sense to do a sit down dinner for 250 people with just 5 servers and no carts to deliver the dinner on. Make sure that if you do go with a sit-down dinner that they will have enough help to get the meal served quickly and efficiently.

I hope those insights help. Check back tomorrow for the last and probably most important post in this series.

Easy Free Web site from Google

Google docs have been one of my favorite things for quite some time now. So today when Google released their wedding formatting for Web sites, I was ecstatic. Marrying the two things I love, the organization of Google docs with weddings, what could be more perfect?

So I just had to check it out. I had to make a site for myself. And I have to say, I LOVE IT!

Google makes it so easy. If you can read, you can create your own wedding site. There's such customization. It's awesome.

But it doesn't stop at the site, there are great planning tools. And those tools link seamlessly with the site to help you calculate guests list and get everything perfect for that day. Forget about the other wedding sites that give you tricky to use URLs. Google makes it super easy and simple.

I made a little site for me and Kelly (not jinxing myself). Go ahead and take a look at it: https://sites.google.com/site/kateloveskelly/home
(Not an overly complicated URL)

I checked out some of the the other spreadsheets. The budget one was really great. It's a premade excel sheet which is awesome because I really despise having to format excel.

Oh and the best part about all of this business: IT'S FREE!!!!!!

Beating the Waiting Game pt 1

Having been a guest at probably 50+ weddings over the years, I can tell you that there is nothing more frustrating than waiting around for everything to happen. On your big day, you don't want to be worrying about your guest having a good time. That's why it's important to put careful time and planning into your scheduling ahead of time.

The three most frustrating times of waiting are

• Time waiting at the reception for you to arrive
• Waiting in line for food
• Waiting for open dancing to begin

Of course there are some other times that are slow going, but I think these are the three that can really make or break the party. In the next three articles I'll address why these three times can ruin the party for your guests and how to avoid them.

Time Waiting at the Reception for You to Arrive

Why it kills the mood: There is no worse feeling than getting to a party before it's gotten started. Most of us would rather be fashionably late and arrive while things are in full swing than get there while the host is still setting up. Wedding guests feel the same. You want them to arrive while something is going on so they aren't thinking about what they'd rather be doing.

How to save it: I will get one thing out of the way, if you are not taking all of your photos before the wedding because you want to wait for the groom to see you coming down the aisle, PLAN on scheduling at least a two hour gap between the end of the ceremony and the beginning of the reception. It's going to take you more than an hour to take those photos and the commute between the ceremony space and the reception space will add up quickly. Don't rush yourself. But let your guests know that they don't need to rush there. They can go home for a few hours or maybe go buy that present they didn't have time to get ahead of time.

If you do only plan for you to have the common hour-long limo ride with a stop at a bar or a park for quick pictures, remember that means that your guests will probably be waiting for you for about 40 minutes to an hour. Here are some ways to make your guests feel welcomed.

1. Plan to have host couples to arrive first to get things started.
2. Plan for a cocktail hour so that hungry guests can have a snack or allow dinner to be served.
3. Plan some sort of 10-15 minute silent looping slide-show.
4. Provide activities for kids: coloring books, a craft or some sort of entertainer.
   
5. Plan a fun, time-consuming memory keeping activity: photo booth, wish tree with cards at each table or provide a looping photo slide-show.
   

It's really important that the vendors are ready for your guests when they arrive so they guests feel like they aren't too early. Make sure the host couples know that their job is to be the host and make sure that people feel welcomed.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 and how to make the dinner line go by faster.

Biggest Wedding Blunders

If you've never seen the show "Four Weddings" on TLC, let me tell you, it's one of my favorite wedding shows. The concept is that four real brides come together to compete for a dream honeymoon. They each attend each others' weddings and rate them for experience, food, venue, and dress. It's hilarious because you get to hear everyone's caddy remarks. Usually it's surprising who wins. I love it when the woman with the lowest budget is the winner because it shows that the best weddings aren't the ones with the highest price, but the ones with the most thought and sentiment put into them.

Last Friday, "Four Weddings" had a Biggest Blunders episode. A lot of them were kind of overly critical. Some things brides really have no control over at all. But some of them were definitely worthwhile to point out. Most things aren't Do or Don't. Different factors contribute to whether or not something is a good idea for your wedding. It depends a lot on size and location of the wedding. So here are my picks for the biggest wedding day blunders:

1. Being Late to Your Own Wedding - Probably the most tacky thing is making your guests wait. I think there's an expected 15 minute swing time that allows for guests who are running late not to walk in during the middle. But anything more than that is kind of rude.

2. Not taking your vows seriously - Most people take marriage very seriously. It's definitely not appropriate to be drunk during your vows. It's ok to laugh out of nervousness, but people to expect some heartfelt sentiments and emotions rather than snickering. BUT DEFINITELY don't be drunk.

3. Disregarding the weather and environment - You have little control over the weather, but you do have control over the day and what precautions you take. Think about heaters, bug zappers, fans and a back-up plan in case of rain or terrible wind (makes the ceremony inaudible). Also look around, is there an airport nearby? Is there a highway close? Those noises will distract from your ceremony.

4. No View - Make sure that there aren't pillars in the way of your guests view of the ceremony. Also let you photographers and videographers know that you don't want guests' view blocked.
5. Reception Commute - Making guests drive an hour is a little excessive. I would say try not to have your wedding and reception more than 30 minutes away from one another.
6. Planning for those who didn't RSVP - A lot of people may not RSVP. Plan on it. I'd plan for about half of however many people don't respond. So keep track of Yes's and No's.

7. Bad dates - I have a rule of thumb with dates. If it's a small, mostly-family wedding, holiday weekends are a good idea because it allows for them to consolidate traveling. If you're wedding is big with lots of friends and business associates and distant relatives, I'd say opt for a date not centered around a holiday. Most people get frustrated if you interrupt their Memorial or Labor Day weekends because they want to make their own plans. If you do decide to make it over a holiday weekend, make sure there are other planned events for all of the out-of-towners. Middle of the week weddings should be reserved for smaller more intimate weddings.

8. Food - Food is tricky because you want to have what you love, but some people may be more picky than you. If you do decide to have adventurous food like Indian or Greek food, try to make sure there are some more generic, non-spicy, recognizable foods. Some people are very sensitive to spicy foods so make sure there's a way to distinguish the spicy foods. But I love the idea of doing anything besides the typical chicken, beef, mashed potatos, green beans, and dinner salad.

9. Buffet or No buffet - Buffets have their advantages. It allows people to pick exactly what they want and requires fewer hired hands. But when you have limited choices, it's not a big deal for people to have choices. Down sides include long lines and people taking over-sized portions. It's a double-edged sword. Talk to your caterer and see which option is more affordable, it might surprise you that some caterers charge less for a sit-down dinner because the portions are controlled.

10. Super Long Toasts - Only best man, the maid of honor, parents, and the couple should give toasts. Enough said.

11. Booze - people are touchy about alcohol. I say, it's your day, you decide if you want booze there are not. Open bars are expensive, people are expecting a lot. Guests should be understanding.

12. Being Completely Wasted - It's your day, don't you want to remember it?

Looking Fresh During Your Ceremony

Having worked as a vendor in the wedding industry providing day-of services, I cannot tell you how important it is to carefully plan the order of events for the day ahead of time. There are a lot of things that many brides don't think about. Many vendors don't think outside of their own service to see how their scheduling may affect another aspect of the day. An example, a wedding I did makeup for last summer.

The wedding was on July 3rd of last year which was an absolute scorcher if you don't remember. The bride had scheduled 4 hours of photos in the heat of the afternoon with many of them to take places outdoors. The photographer had told her that would be a good idea. But what this photographer didn't think about is how even 1 hour outside would affect the bride's hair and makeup. By the time her 6 pm ceremony rolled around, the curls of her half-up do had completely fallen flat. She spent several hours in the Sunken Gardens taking pictures. All of the groomsmen were drenched in their own sweat and even the bridesmaids who were wearing strapless cocktail dresses had pit stains.

Sure the pictures outside will probably look nice, but the whole bridal party looked like a disaster at the ceremony. This all could have been avoided if the the photographer had just thought about it a little. Doing all the formal photos beforehand is a great plan to avoid doing the long drawn out process after the ceremony. But it's a good idea to do formal photos indoors at the church unless the weather is absolutely gorgeous (in the seventies with low humidity).

Save outdoor photos for after the ceremony. This can be a fun stop on the way to the reception to allow the guests to get to the venue before the bride and groom. This way, the bride's hair and makeup is preserved for the ceremony.