- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee boards
That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm getting married June 7 in Florida, then having a reception July 9 in Missouri.
It will be a regular wedding reception with dinner and dancing.
That sounds wonderful! I hadn't really made a final decision on it until I had this conversation with my mom so now we have another thing to plan lol!
My FI and I are having a small, less than 20ppl, destination wedding in St. Thomas, then having a reception here in Atlanta a couple of weeks later for ~120 ppl. It's like planning two weddings, really.. LoL. I'm not complaining though! He actually wants me to have a different dress for the at home reception, too.... not complaining about that either! :o)
Haha MsFoxxy! That's how I feel about it as well! I feel as though I'm planning 2 weddings. Both of your events sound like they are going to be wonderful. I was thinking of wearing a short ivory/champagne dress for the reception back home. I haven't sprung that bit of news to the FI yet. Do you plan on wearing white or different color altogether?
We also got married in St. Thomas with 24 people then had a reception back home a month later for about 100 people. Our home reception was more of a cocktail party - we rented out a restaurant and had appetizers, cake and an open bar for 3 hours. And I wore a wedding gown for the wedding and a knee-length white dress for the home party. It was so nice being able to celebrate with everyone that we didn't bring with us to St. Thomas!
His mom is throwing us a reception in his hometown, since even though it isn't technically a destination wedding (it's where i grew up) most of my family and all of his live all the way across the country.
It will be really good to be able to see everyone.
@DutchBride21: I plan on wearing white or ivory at the at home reception. I actually told him that I would let him pick the dress I wear to the reception, since he's being left out of the selection of my ceremony dress, so we'll see what he comes up with.. LoL! A short champagne dress sounds really pretty though! I'm sure you'll be able to find something gorgeous that both you and your FI will love.
i wasn't planning to do an AHR at all because when i first started planning my DW, i thought for sure all the "important" people were attending in Jamaica. they all told me they were anyway. meaning family and extremely close friends. i was okay never having a wedding for the other 100 people i would have invited if it was in my hometown. however, now my FIs sister and kids can't come and two of my best friends of all time cannot come. which has brought my wedding down from about 20 something people to 17 (including me and FI).....so since all this happend, i started thinking seriously about an AHR. i can't really afford a real reception (hence the DW), but i am thinking a backyard BBQ kind of thing. i would still make my own invitaitons and give it a formal feel through them. i would certainly not wear my wedding dress, but either the dress i am using for my TTD (which is long, but one layer and more like an evening dress and its ivory), OR what i will most likely wear is a white summer dress, cocktail length. since two of my BMs can no longer come to Jamaica but already bought their BM dresses, they would wear them as well just for fun! I would ask my other BMs if they want to wear their dresses again, but if not, thats cool....And i would definitely set up some kind of slide show of our pro pics for everyone to see. AND since i know someone who makes wedding cakes on the side and i can't get my dream wedding cake at the resort where my wedding is, i would get a wedding cake from her and serve it. the rest would be music, fun and BBQ food!
i keep saying I "would" do all these things because i wont know for another month or so where FI will be next year in terms of a job/post doc. and if we are too far away from our hometown, we probably cant do the AHR this summer like i want. so i am keeping my fingers crossed that it works out. i would do it in August as it would give us time to plan and be close to our dating anniversary just for fun.
here is the cake i want for the AHR
!:
@DutchBride21: I understand about the FMIL wanting to have a big party! Our wedding isn't exactly destination - it's in my hometown and for 150 people. But his parents are going to throw a reception where we live now (his hometown) and it will be bigger (more like 250 than 500 though!). FH is FMIL's only child, and I think she wanted to be involved in planning a big celebration for us. So it seemed like a good compromise to us to have a reception here that FH's parents could invite whomever they wanted, and just choose the "select few special people" for the hometown wedding.
I'm planning on getting a short white/ivory dress to wear to the bigger reception because I don't think I'd want to drag my wedding dress around a cocktail reception, but want to stand out lol.
i was never planning on having an at home reception either, but got guilted into it. we are doing a carnival cruise out of miami port (7 days), getting off in the grand cayman islands, and getting married on the island. we are having cake and punch on the island after the ceremony and then going back on the boat for dinner - wearing our wedding attire to dinner.
THEN when we get home we are doing an at home reception 2 weeks later. i have a hook up -one of my family members does direct business with my venue, so i am literally paying 50% of the usual cost, otherwise we would have just done a cocktail house instead of a full blown dinner. we got our cake from shop rite for 180 bucks to feed 150 people. we have a different cake topper.
I am having an AHR. It was actually really important to me when we started planning a DW because I have been waiting for my reception my whole life. So we are planning a whole regular reception with dinner and dancing afterwards.
My friends had their wedding in TN and the reception in Ohio the very next weekend. It was a regular reception with dinner and dancing. The bride put her dress back on as did the wedding party. The girls even had their hair done again. It worked out well for them.
We're not technically having a DW, but we're getting married in Dallas and my family is in Minnesota. We agreed my family will invite a smaller number of friends and relatives to the Dallas wedding and then we will have an AHR in MN so they can invite all of their friends and extended family.
I think it will be more like a dinner reception than a wedding reception...I don't think there will be dancing and an open bar, probably beer and wine and a catered plated dinner at a restaurant or country club. I will probably not wear my dress again for it, but I will probably look for a white cocktail dress instead. I've left this one up to my parents, so we'll have to see what they want to do! I think it will be fun!
We did that!
We had a lovely destination wedding (had my grandparents both pass away, and a darn oil spill happen right near where our original wedding site was to be in Pensacola and with a beach reception) that I planned in less than 2 months.
After our wedding, we flew back, and kinda relaxed for a few days at home (did the destination wedding and honeymoon thing), then had four days later, our wedding reception at a wonderful restaurant here!
Ours was also in the same price range (50-60$ per person) and it was amazing!
We did everything just as we would've done as if we'd married right before our reception!
Here's some of my cake. We loved it! It was so tasty and delicious and also was a nod to the lovely seaside town of Key West, where we tied the knot! Our colors were lime green and hot pink/fuscia!
I have to say I am loving these cakes! I wish I had a slice :P
I am loving the idea of a reception after the DW more and more after reading your posts! I think I prefer this option over having a wedding where I felt like it wasn't what I really wanted just to please everyone else. I think this is a win/win situation for everyone.
Yup, doing that as well! I live in Santa Barbara, and my Fi's family is all about an hour or so from here. My family, though, is 5 hours. We're having a wedding down here, then having a second "party" (low key, more laid back) in my hometown. There are so many people from my life back home that have had an influence on my life and I wanted to celebrate with them, too!
@DutchBride21: French riviera DW! Lovely, we will be honeymooning in the french riviera.
We're having a DW in Italy with 20 guests and initially had not planned a reception at home. But now we most likely are having one a couple months after we get back, but it will be a simple one. Backyard wedding, food buffet - casual but fun. Probably will have hundreds of local friends and family come in and out throughout the day.
We're not going to have a full on reception, but we're thinking of hosting a few hours of open bar in a private party room at a bar in our neighborhood. We might not even do that, because where we live (NY) most of the people invited from there we see all the time anyway, and I doubt people will travel from out of state for a few hours of open bar, when they can just travel to our destination where the real fun is, haha.
@Kankanwed If you've never been to the Riviera you are going to fall in love! There are so many nooks to explore and it's simply a beautiful place. Where are you honeymooning? We'll be stationed in Nice, but the reception will take place in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat. I found this video by Rick Steves to be very helpful to watch the first time before I went. Hope you like it! Enjoy!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/90679/rick-steves-europe-french-riviera-uniquely-chic
@DutchBride21: We are IN LOVE with Cap Ferrat - just from google images! We're staying for a week in the hill town of Cagnes Sur Mer and will be visiting Eze, Nice, Villefranche sur Mer, Cap Ferrat, Antibes -- anywhere and everywhere we can. Thank you SO MUCH for the video. Fiance and I are gushing over it. You are going to have a gorgeous wedding!
OMG @Kankanwed you are going to have such a ROMANTIC honeymoon!!! Not to be missed is the bus ride to Monaco! If you can squeeze it in to your already amazing itinerary do so! The bus ticket was one euro if I remember correctly and you catch it at the bus station in Nice. I also recommend the walk along the sea in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat that Rick Steves talks about. FI and I did it and we LOVED IT! You're going to have a beautiful wedding as well in Italy with an amazing honeymoon to follow!!!
Congrats and good luck! I see you're almost on your way :)
We are getting married in the Dominican with 22 of our nearest and dearest. We are staying an extra week to honeymoon alone. The weekend we return I simply rented a bartender, dj, and community hall. We are going to show our wedding video and photos, then party all night doing just a late lunch, hors d'ouerves.(No dinner). Guest list 100ppl invited.
Total cost of AHR - less than $1800
Doing beach themed centerpieces (candles and sand anyone)?
Not wearing my dress again, just going to find a short cute white one.
still way under our $7000 budget, and Ill have the wedding of my dreams and please everyone too.
@DutchBride21: I was planning the monster wedding and my groom had enough of everyone barking at us about what to do and who to invite. We eloped and told them all when we returned. Best decision ever. People were a little bummed but understood. It also allowed for us to get our dream home. We are still having a reception, but the guest list was cut down to a quarter of what is was. We're still doing the open bar and sit down dinner and dj etc, just keeping it way more personal.
It's important to remember this, you may not want to hurt your family and friends, but it's most important not to hurt you and your husband. Do was is right by the two of you, no one else. People will understand and respect your choices, or you'll realize they weren't worth inviting anyway. Good luck to you.
@PurpleUnicorn: I know how you feel! I thought for sure all the family and all my closest friends will make it. We were planning on 30 guests, and including 10 of my closest friends. Well because of scheduling, work, kids, most friends can't come and even FI sister can't come. So now we have maybe 18-20 pple (including us!). So the thought of an AHR became more and more of a reality.
Plus seeing how other bees are doing it, I am starting to get kind of excited about having ALL my friends come just for a celebration and no formalities.
We decided to have an at home reception because none of our parents are coming to Jamaica with us. We are actually doing a unity sand ceremony and my dad will walk me down the aisle. The catch is, we are setting up everything, doing everything ourselves. We rented a cheap hall that lets us bring our own food and alcohol and are doing it all for under $4000. We are having about 180 people.
My FMIL agreed to throw us a wedding reception since we're just going to Vegas ourselves with no guests to get hitched on October 13. We would like to have the reception either on October 22nd or the 29th which would be shortly after we return because we'd like to do something with a Halloween theme.
Our guest list most likely won't surpass 80 people though and that's the kind of intimate reception that we'd prefer since we never wanted a big wedding either.
I'm getting a little worried though because my FMIL is slacking on booking a reception venue. We have only looked at 2 places so far with no luck.
Small wedding in Vieques Puerto Rico..less than 20..then coming back home to KY and having a huge reception/party at my Grandmothers lol Pig roast and all...it is going to be great. Thumbs up to destination wedding and home receptions! =)
We are wanting to do this, after tiny turnout at our "destination" wedding in Iowa (we live in Texas)... our guest list for an AHR, if everyone shows, will be more than double how many we had in Iowa!
The biggie is money. So, we're thinking of something in a park with barbecue, but it's texas and it will be HOT. So, not sure really what to do. :(
We badly missed some of our closest friends who couldn't make the trip to Iowa though, and would love to be able to celebrate with them here after all!
I love your profile picture btw MsInterpret! =) lol Is there some place you can find that will be fairly affordable so you can do most of the reception inside..at least the food part and then after eating move people outside for whatever kinda festivities? I agree with the bad heat..no one wants to eat or anything when it is scorching out..but maybe you could do inside/outside..I dunno that is a tricky one! Congrats on your wedding! =)
@kellyj23: Thanks for the congrats! :) We are still trying to figure it out. If we could do it RIGHT now, or in the next couple weeks, AND do it in the evening ( the park we were considering is open til 11), then it might be bearable, but don't think we'll be able to come up with the money that fast unless it's a potluck. ;)
I hear ya with the finances! We got engaged in January and was hoping to get married this summer..but yeah...not enough time or money..so we just planned for next year. lol
@kellyj23: Yeah,our wedding was really "low budget" by most standards, but a big huge chunk of our budget was spent gettting TO our wedding destination (Iowa) and securing a place to stay while we were there. If we'd had the same wedding here in texas it would have been super frugal! What we spent would have covered the wedding AND honeymoon.
And there were some mistakes made by my beloved wifey who was in charge of all the money stuff. (same wife who plans to be a math teacher!!).. honest mistakes, I can't be angry, but next big money project will include both of us, that's for sure, because her math errors hurt us in a big way and now we're on Ramen time!
So I am counting on selling my dress and doing some Ebay sales and some temp work or something to come up with money for this reception (and hopefully honeymoon)!
We are getting married in LV and having a reception there as well as an AHR. I am not sure what the plan is, but something low key like a BBQ or something.
We got married in Bermuda on February 26th of this year. There were only 15 people in attendance (including bride & groom). I really wanted to have a larger reception for extended family and friends (my very best friend ended up getting pregnant, and was not able to come to the wedding since she gave birth ten days prior).
So we are having a casual summer reception on the grounds of a lovely home in our area this June. Though I am finding out that casual in theme does not necessarily translate to "casual" pricing. Living in the DC metro area and having an event during high summer wedding season (even if it isn't a wedding) ain't cheap, I am finding out. And my venue recently had an events staff shakeup, and part of the new regime is a sole-source caterer. I signed up with the understanding that I had 10 caterers to choose from, and now, I have no choice--I work with the sole source caterer or I take my event elsewhere. And when I told the new event person my total budget, she said, "we can maybe get your catering alone covered with that amount." Ouch!
Since ours will be family-only, we're doing an AHR for our friends about a month after we come back from our honeymoon. I'm thinking a backyard BBQ too, or something equally inexpensive and casual- planning to have invites/wedding announcements made up with our picture :)
I won't wear my wedding dress again, but I'll for sure get a cute short one in an ivory color.
We just had our destination wedding two weeks ago in Punta Cana and it was amazing! We are now finishing up last minute details for our at-home-reception that we are holding this weekend. We had 16 friends attend the wedding in Punta Cana, and are having a normal wedding reception here with about 180 people this weekend. We are really looking forward to it since there are so many people who wanted to attend the wedding but couldn't - plus it will be a good chance for us to share pictures and memories from the wedding!
we are not doing anything when we get home. the reason that it was okay for us to do a DW was because we didn't have very many people we cared to have at our wedding in the first place. so the people who are coming are still the only people we care to celebrate with.
You must log in to post.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| Lyndzo | 52 |
| Brielle | 41 |
| mypinkshoes | 34 |
| his chippymunk | 32 |
| Cady | 32 |
| fivemonthsnotice | 32 |
| TheLionQueen | 31 |
| AshleyR83 | 30 |
| This Time Round | 29 |
| ndreighton | 27 |
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| allihappy | 1 |
 CassidyR |
1 |
| NaraG |
1 |
| pigment80 | 1 |
| Liecey84 | 1 |
| mdoodles | 1 |
| shychigirl | 1 |
| SAlady | 1 |
After my dad died last year I decided I just wanted a small intimate wedding in the French Riviera. I was never into the whole big wedding thing and opted for a small one with family and very close friends. Guest list would be no more than 50 people.
I was casually chatting with my mom the other day and she mentioned that she would have liked me to have a big wedding here in NYC. That was a huge curveball since I've had my mind made up for about a year now. I understand her wanting to have a wedding her so she can share the occasion with her friends, but to be honest if I had my wedding here the guest list would surpass 500 guests! Between my big family, FI big family, and the fact that my mother is very well connected in her community the wedding would just be bigger than anything I would ever want. So we talked it over and I suggested she bring 20 guests to the destination wedding and maybe 6 months later we could hold a reception for everyone else. Like a holiday party/wedding celebration.I started looking into venues because NYC ain't cheap and managed to find a decent venue for about $50pp. I just need to go visit and do a tasting so I can spread my payments over the course of the year.
Is anyone else having a reception after their DW? What are you planning if you are?