Thursday, June 12, 2008

What I Hate About My Wedding

OK - let me lie down on the couch, doctor. There is one thing about my wedding that I can't stand, and it is really starting to bother me. Really. What am I talking about, you ask? The fact that my mother won't stop worrying about whether or not we need to provide the hairdresser with bobby pins? While that is a rather pressing issue, I am not referring to hairdresser woes.
I am referring to "the gap." Not the store, though I have been disappointed with them for a while, but the fact that there is a gap between the ceremony and the reception.

I don't know what to do - I know that many people have posted their dissatisfaction on Knot message boards, but it just can't be helped. Even though my fiance and I talked to our deacon about the date 14 months before the wedding the time we wanted (4:30) wasn't available. We had our choice between 2:00 and 7:00. I blame the Catholicism. If there weren't so many of us getting married at churches, there wouldn't be this cafeteria-style ceremony line up at the church. Yargh.

We realized that a reception starting at 8:00 pm wouldn't be super friendly to our older guests, so we decided to have the wedding at 2:00 pm. We also realized that a reception that started at 3:00 or 3:30 would not be any fun - who wants to dance and drink (or for that matter, eat dinner) and leave in the daylight? So, we have "a gap," from whenever the 2:00 ceremony ends (it's a Catholic non-mass, so it's vague - somewhere between 40 minutes to an hour) until the 6:00 reception.

My sister also had a gap at her wedding. My parents reserved a meeting room at the hotel and had sodas, beers, and snacks there after the ceremony and until the reception. I don't know if that's in the plans for this wedding, but it's very distressing. Everyone keeps asking me what they're supposed to do between the wedding and the reception. I need to think up a good answer. Maybe there's a 3:30 movie across the street from the hotel. A quirky comedy would be perfect, people would be out by 5:15.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have the same situation, but not so much time in between: noon wedding (Catholic non-mass) and 2pm reception.

My wedding is in a beach community, so there are lots of scenic ways to kill some time.

I like the idea of a conference room with refreshments.

I am guessing the hungry will hit the drive-thru. :)

I enjoy your blog, by the way!

Unknown said...

We have the standard Catholic ceremony-reception "gap" as well. Our church will only do 2:00 ceremonies b/c of 4:30 Saturday mass.

I believe my FIL's will invite family to their home, but for my friends who do not know where to "hang" during the downtime I am planning to give them a list of restaraunts/bars nearby and a description of each so that they can decide where they want to go.

Crazycarmella said...

That is a big gap...Hmmmmm What are you going to do during the gap??

Anonymous said...

I almost had this problem and I was definately stressing out. Our church only does 2 weddings per weekend and only at Noon or 2pm. So not what I had in mind....So they comprimised with us and let us do Friday night at 4:30...which will probably mean 5pm. My other problem involves the decorations since the wedding is during lent. I know what you're thinking. Yeah-it just happened that way.
Love your blog!