- l2fly
- 8 years ago
- Wedding: June 2013
My hubby-to-be & I are getting married in 2 weeks. We are having a smaller, less formal morning wedding with a lunch reception at a lodge/restaurant for 50 people afterwards. I’ll be wearing a long dress & he’ll be in a suit, but we aren’t have a bridal party, processional, etc.
As we both love the outdoors, I thought it would be awesome to have our ceremony underneath one of the giant Sequoias in the nearby national forest, and we found a public picnic area about 8 miles past our reception site where we plan on having the ceremony, then going back to the restaurant/lodge afterwards for the reception. We’ve been to the ceremony location several times, and the biggest problem is parking… there are few actual parking ‘spots’, maybe room for about 10 cars nearby, and otherwise people will have to park along the side of the narrow forest road where they can and walk a bit to the ceremony site.
At first, I didn’t think this was such a big deal… on our website, we are explaining the situation, encouraging people to come early, wear sensible shoes in case they have to walk, and asking people to car pool. We are also passing this info on to our family and friends, and since its a small wedding, we’ve managed to talk to everyone so I think everyone has an idea what it will be like. Other than our parents and an aunt & uncle, most of our guests are very healthy and active, so the walking shouldn’t be a problem.
However, now, two weeks out, I’m kind of freaking out… is this going to be a disaster, with people complaining, driving back and forth, and getting pissed off? We could have the ceremony right at the restaurant/lodge, in the front lawn next to two big pine trees, but it isn’t nearly as pretty as underneath the 1000 year old Sequoia tree! But, we could always go to the picnic area for pictures, then come back to the lodge for the ceremony… and I think changing the location, even at this late date, would be doable, as our guest list is small, and it would be easy to personally call/text each group on the list to let them know just to go straight to the Lodge instead of the picnic area down the road.
I’m going back and forth on this, and I’m driving my fiance nuts! He says to let it go, he likes the location and figures people will work with it, and its not that big of a deal… but I’m wondering if it would be worth it to change it, and sacrifce the perfect location for less stress for me and our guests.
Thoughts?