Weddingbee boards

are you sure they can't allow you to come in the day before, especially if they don't have another event?  You should try to convince them.  Other than that, honestly, do not do it yourself.  its too  much.  Either hire someone to do it, or get some family/friends to do it.  And don't feel bad about it!!!

If you can't get in the day before, and the venue charges as soon as you walk in (which sucks, btw!), I'd probably just suck it up and hire someone.  They'll probably get it more quickly and efficiently than family/friends, and save everyone a lot of stress.

We got lucky, and got to spend all day Friday decorating and setting up.  I managed to do most of it myself, and then two friends arrived early to help with the rest.  We had a small, simple wedding, and even that still took a few hours.

Friends and family!  Ask people close to you (who might not mind missing the first part of the reception).... Your close friends and family will be eager to help.

We had this same issue! The schedule I had set up gave us an hour from the time we got to the facility to the time we were to walk down the isle. Granted out facility set up the chairs and buffet tables for us, but I'm sure we could have done it even if we'd had to do that. For a success story, we ended up starting a half an hour late and only because our officiant/friend got lost and was late.

Here's how I did it! I enlisted my friends very early on and asked them to help me as our wedding gift. I wasn't able to have all the girls in my bridal party that I wanted to, so these girls I asked to help were all very close friends. They helped me do all kinds of things the day before the wedding.

As far as the wedding day, I had everything organized and placed in boxes. For instance everything that my mom needed to set up cookie buffet table number 1 was in the box labeled as such. I also put together very detailed (read: ocd, scary!) layouts of the tables so that they would know exactly where I wanted everything placed on the tables. Some of my friends were assigned to do odds and ends decorating things and I made sure that everything they needed (including scissors, tape, etc.) was in their box with a layout of what they needed to do. I also had it set up so that everyone broke down what they had put up, that whey they knew exaclty what they were looking for.

The night before the wedding the girls all hung out at my house so I went through everything with each girl. I showed them the layout, walked them through each thing in the box and answered any questions they had. By the time we got the facility everyone knew exactly what they were being asked to do, and it was set up before i even knew it! In fact they kept pushing me out the door because I kept trying to set up table cloths and such.

All the girls really enjoyed being involved and I they all said it made them feel more involved and investing in our wedding (and  not like hired help which I was afraid of). Anytime I'm asked to help the key is that they tell me very clearly what they need me to do and give me the tools i need to do a good job of it! Feel free to PM me with your email address and I can send you some pdf's of my scary, ocd lists and diagrams and such. Good luck!

(wow! this is long. sorry!)

We're doing something similar. We were going to be able to set up the day before, but now the venue has another wedding booked, so we'll be going in the day of. Luckily, the wedding isn't until late afternoon/early evening, so there's plenty of time that morning. I don't have all the details yet, but ideally, I would have everything planned out ahead of time like bonniebelle101 (sounds awesome, btw!!!) and all the groomsmen and bridesmaids will know exactly what to do and it won't take too long. I don't mind helping with the setup, since I'm a total type A / OCD person and want to make sure it looks the way I want it to, but my fiance doesn't like the idea of me doing work that morning, but also doesn't like the idea of us seeing each other that day, so we can't both be there doing setup. So if I can't change his mind (he has so few opinions about this stuff, so I like to try to listen when he does have one), then I'm going to "hire" a friend of a friend to be my DOC and be in charge of the groomsmen doing set up. I guess we have it a little easier, because our caterer said her staff would be happy to help out in any way they can. So we'll be setting up things like paper lanterns and the caterers will be putting up the table linens and putting the centerpieces on the tables, etc. Hopefully it will all work out!