Yearly Archives: 2018

Evaluating Wedding Venues

 in Ceremony / Guests / Venue / Weddings  tagged outdoor weddings / wedding ceremony / wedding venues / weddings by

Evaluating wedding venues is one of the first tasks you undertake as a newly engaged couple. When you are checking out possible venues there are many things you need to consider, and it can become overwhelming. Each venue has its own charms… and drawbacks, and you’ll want to select the one that best fits your vision for your wedding. The following list gives you a place to start.

– First you’ll want to ascertain the venue’s availability for your wedding date, or what dates they have available, if you haven’t set your date yet.

– Consider both the indoor and outdoor ceremony spaces. Even if you’re planning an outdoor ceremony, you want to ensure there is an indoor space in case of bad weather. You want the indoor space to be a true, viable alternative as the many extremely hot, wet, and cold weekends this year demonstrate.

– For outdoor ceremony spaces, check to see if power is available. Your DJ and celebrant may need it to power speakers, and you want your guests to be able to hear the ceremony.

– Ask about seating – does the venue provide chairs, hay bales, benches, or do you need to provide the seating? Does seating from the ceremony space needs to be moved to the reception space, and if so, are you responsible for moving it?

– Also for outdoor ceremony spaces, look around. Is there an obvious place for the ceremony, or just lots of open space? If open space, will you need to provide decor elements to create a focal point or backdrop for the ceremony?

– Consider the sun’s location and height at the time of year and time of day your ceremony will be held. Will your guests be staring into bright sunshine?

– When evaluating wedding venues you’ll also want to consider your guests’ comfort and accessibility. Are there restrooms, ramps, wide and stable walkways, sufficient parking?

– Does the venue require you to use specific musicians/DJs, florists, bakers, officiants, caterers, etc? Can they provide the services you want?

– And finally, remember to get information on pricing. Ask about any additional or hidden charges. You want to ensure the venue costs are within your overall budget.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when searching for the right venue for your wedding day. Take your time, have a list of questions to ask and areas you want to see. Ask if you can take pictures so you can review them later and remember the specifics of each venue. Evaluating wedding venues can be exciting, stressful, overwhelming, and fun all at once, so go in prepared and you’ll be able to select the right venue to make your wedding day vision come true.

Children in Your Wedding Party: Tips for Success

 in Blended family / Ceremony / Weddings  tagged ceremony / children / wedding by

Children in your wedding party can be sweet and fun, if you plan appropriately and are willing to be flexible. Children will do as they please in the moment, but following these tips will increase the chances that the reality will match your vision:

1. Select children of the right age. If you want them to walk down the aisle independently (or with another child), age 5 or older is optimal.

2. If you choose to include younger children in your wedding party, consider having them walk in with a parent who is also in the wedding party, or be escorted all the way to the front by a parent not in the party. While this may be nontraditional, it may work best.

3. Have someone the children know monitor them as the wedding party lines up, so they can be whisked away in case of a meltdown. Additionally, have a familiar face near the front that the children can walk to so it isn’t a sea of strange faces.

4. Plan for the children to sit with family members during the ceremony. Little ones standing in front during the ceremony are likely to create a distraction for the wedding party, the guests, and you if they get bored.

5. Keep the children in your wedding party on their normal eating and sleeping schedules as much as possible.

6. Take pictures that include the children as close to the ceremony time (before or after) as possible. This minimizes the amount of time you expect them to behave and follow instructions.

7. If the children in your wedding party are your own or if both their parents are in your wedding party, have a caregiver in attendance to remove the children if needed. Ideally this is not a very close family member who will be unhappy if they miss part of the ceremony. A day care provider, babysitter or grandparents (but not your parents) are all good choices.

Even if you follow all of the above tips, remember that the children really are in charge. They will decide if they walk up the aisle… or if they run or refuse to move at all. They will decide if they toss flower petals, hold the sign facing out… or drop the ring pillow to the ground. They will decide if their faces are ringed in smiles, or smudged with tears. If you choose to have children in your wedding party remember to go with the flow and be prepared to deal with the unexpected. Sometimes the unexpected makes for the most memorable moments…

Honored Guests: Helpful Ceremony Preparation Tips

 in Ceremony / Guests / Weddings  tagged ceremony / guests / wedding / wedding ceremony / wedding guests by

Honored guests at a wedding ceremony include grandparents and other immediate family members who are not in your wedding party, along with readers and any other ceremony participants. There are a few ceremony preparations that can ensure these important people in your life feel respected, remembered and special on your wedding day.

First, as you’re placing your floral order, consider which of these people should receive a boutonniere or corsage. This simple but very visible sign marks them as honored guests throughout the entire day.

Next, create a space plan for your honored guests. Lay out the first few rows of your ceremony venue, ensuring a reserved seat for each of these people. You’ll want to mark the reserved area (on both sides of the aisle) with signs or some other indicator of the reserved area. Alternately, you can create individual name tags that can be affixed to each chair. If you opt for this approach, ensure that the ink on the tags will not rub off on clothing, ruining special attire.

With the spaces reserved, the final step is to ensure that your honored guests land in those seats. You’ll want to communicate to them ahead of time (this is a great task to delegate to mothers or other trusted people) so the family members know to look for their seats or identify themselves to the ushers.

Speaking of ushers, they should have a written list or map of the honored guests and where you want them seated. When the guests arrive, even if the rest of the guests are informally seating themselves, the honored guests should be escorted to their reserved seats. This is a bit of special treatment that again will make them feel remembered and respected.

With a little thought and preparation your honored guests will feel special and appreciated as they share in your wedding day. Make sure to get some photos with these folks, too. They make a great keepsake for them and for you.

Selecting Your Wedding Celebrant

 in Celebrant / Ceremony / Officiant / Weddings  tagged selecting celebrant / selecting wedding celebrant / selecting wedding officiant / wedding celebrant / wedding ceremony / wedding officiant by

Selecting your wedding celebrant or officiant is just one of the many decisions you need to make as an engaged couple planning your wedding day. While most couples have ideas of what they want for their wedding reception and party, many draw a blank when thinking about what they want in their ceremony. Allow me to lay out some of the early questions to ask yourselves as you begin the search for your ideal wedding celebrant.

– A good place to start is by asking if you are looking for a religious or secular ceremony. There are specialists in both, and you want to be considering celebrants who can provide the kind of ceremony you want.

– Next, consider if you are looking for someone who will craft a ceremony in response to your wishes and based on you as a couple; someone who provides snippets of ceremonies for your consideration and asks you to basically create your own ceremony by assembling the pieces you want; or someone who can provide a brief, elopement style ceremony or handle the legalities of marriage in your state without any ceremony at all.

– Think about weddings you’ve attended or even seen in movies or on TV. Do you have any things you definitely do or do not want in your ceremony?

– And finally, how would you prefer to engage with the celebrant throughout the ceremony writing process? Do you want them to write the ceremony and deliver it as a surprise on your wedding day, or do you prefer to collaborate with them throughout the process?

Once you have answers to the questions posed above, you’re ready to start looking for your celebrant. The internet and recommendations from friends and relatives are great places to start. Or maybe you attended a wedding recently and liked what you heard from the celebrant. Try to find two or three potential celebrants or officiants to meet with.

Reach out to the potential celebrants with a phone call or email. Let them know when and where your ceremony is to take place and ask about their availability and willingness to speak with you further. I’m a fan of in person meetings whenever possible. Taking an hour or two to meet with prospective celebrants will give you a good idea of how comfortable you are speaking with and working with them.

Feel free to ask any questions you have (and it’s OK not to have questions, too). Let them know what you want and don’t want in your ceremony. When selecting your wedding celebrant realize that while they are the expert in this field, you hold the power to book their services or continue to look for a better match. Your celebrant should be willing and able to listen to you and hear what you are asking for in your ceremony, and have the skills, background, and experience to deliver the ceremony you want.

It’s a good idea to invest time and effort in selecting your wedding celebrant as you will work with them closely leading up to your wedding day. Your ceremony will also be the first event of your wedding day and can set the tone for the rest of the celebration. Now is the perfect time to be selecting your wedding celebrant for 2019 ceremonies as the most popular celebrants book early. Don’t hesitate to reach out and begin the process of finding and selecting your wedding celebrant.

Music Strikes a Sour Note

 in Ceremony / Music / Weddings  tagged ceremony music / music / wedding / wedding ceremony / wedding music by

Music strikes a sour note in your wedding ceremony when it distracts from the ceremony experience instead of enhancing it. In the best of all worlds, your musical selections start and end on cue, are played at an optimal volume, and reflect you as a couple. Ceremony music can be of any genre, can be offered live or recorded, and can go seriously wrong.

My best advice to you is to hire professionals. Whether that is an experienced DJ playing recorded music or live professional musicians, the advice holds. Music is the most common part of the wedding ceremony to go wrong in my experience, and when it does, everyone cringes. Here are just a few of the experiences I’ve seen during ceremonies:

– In one ceremony, the couple had a friend who was a talented violinist, and they asked him to play for their ceremony. He arrived very close to the ceremony start time, and set up his equipment. Yes, the violinist had electronic tracks recorded that accompanied his live performance. All this could have been wonderful if he had an experienced assistant who managed the electronics while he focused on his violin. Instead, there were long, awkward pauses waiting for him to begin the accompaniment and then a rush while he tried to position his violin and join in. The long pause before the recessional began left the couple standing in front of their guests, ready to leave the ceremony space, but without any music.

– In other cases music strikes a sour note when friends or family are asked to provide the ceremony music from an iPod/iPad or similar device. I’ve seen these devices trying to play music loud enough to be heard beyond the front 2 rows. They forgot to bring speakers. I’ve seen these devices lock between the beginning and end of the ceremony with the person not knowing the password to unlock it. I’ve seen devices that were tested and connected to bluetooth speakers 30 minutes before the ceremony, only to have them time out and refuse to reconnect for the actual ceremony.

– And maybe the worst was the teenager asked to run the ceremony music from a device in the minutes before the ceremony. She didn’t know which songs were for which parts of the ceremony, and we heard snippets of each of them as the wedding party entered and she tried to figure it all out. When the recessional song (“Signed, Sealed,Delivered”) played as the bride entered, I knew it was going to be a memorable ceremony, and not in a good way.

You can prevent the situation where music strikes a sour note during your ceremony by hiring knowledgeable, experienced people. If you have hired a DJ for your reception it is usually a relatively small incremental expense to have them cover your ceremony, too. If you are hiring live musicians, make sure they’ve played for weddings before, and see if one of them can attend your rehearsal to be clear on where your musical selections fit in the ceremony. If you decide to take a chance and have a family member or friend handle your recorded music, make sure you’ve gotten the needed equipment and that they attend rehearsal and actually play the music as you want them to for the ceremony. Music can be a wonderful addition to your ceremony. Make sure you plan appropriately so you avoid the situation where your music strikes a sour note on your wedding day.