Wedding day arrangement - ceremony & reception reception, arrangement, ceremony, Wedding, day

gugu123

Hi All,

I'm currently working in HK but was planning to have my wedding held in Vancouver next year and I have the following questions to ask:

1. Is it weird if I invite 100 people to my ceremony at place A, but only invite 50 of them to my reception at night at place B?

The reason behind this is because place B is a restaurant that I really like but can only hold a smaller amount of people.  Will I offend those who are not invited to the reception?

2. Do I have to have drinks/food offered to those 100 people at the ceremony?

Please let me know your comments, thanks!

Guy

To Question one.
It's not weird. In fact, it's petty normal. Seen it happens many times.
But here is a catch.
What if an important person unexpectedly show up in your ceremony
(like an old friend yours who have lost contact, heard your wedding from a friend of a friend),
and you really want him/her to come to your dinner?

When you talk to your restaurant or cater on the number of meals preparing, make sure you reserve some extra plates(or seat) (about 5-10% of total guest) for backup to prevent backfire from situation like this.

It will cost little more, but save you many trouble.

TO Question two.
YES~!! you will need refreshments, not just any "drinks and food"
Not too light, not too heavy.
FOOD and DRINKs and what makes people happy and energized.

I rarely involve in wedding anymore, but PM me when you need real help.

fibbi

In my opinion:
Question1:
It's ok but probably you need invitation with two different wordings? (one invite people for ceremony only and one for both ceremony and dinner?)
Question 2:
It's good to offer guests refreshment but not a must. Not many of my friends' wedding offer refreshment after ceremony.
Also depends on ceremony location. If you have ceremony in say golf course then you have to get some food package. But if you have it in church then it's up to you to organize catering.

布小熊

1. totally acceptable. People should be understanding and it's very common that only closer friends and family got to the dinner banquet. So just print 2 different invitations or 2 different insert for the invitation.

2. It's nicer to have at least some beverage after the ceremony. To the minimium, you should have bottled water for your guests.

www.hee.ca

回復 1# gugu123


    1. Agree with fibbi & 布小熊, it is normal to have ceremony guests > banquet guests, all you need is print 2 different sets of invitations. And usually if occupancy permits, you can even invite more people to attend your ceremony after invitations has been sent out, for example making an announcement on your wedding website, through facebook, send out E-cards, but only do this to the young people =).

2. Not a must to feed the guest, depends what time your wedding is going to be, and where it is. There are lots of venues that do not allow you to stay behind after the ceremony, in that case no one will blame you for not having a cocktail.

Wedding is a very personal thing it is all up to you, just enjoy!!

gugu123

Dear All,

Thanks so much for your feedbacks!!! They're very useful for me as reference!
Please allow me to ask a few more questions:

1. I was actually thinking of having the ceremony at Rose Garden of UBC. Has any of you attended any weddings there before? How was it like?

2. Since I was planning to have the ceremony at UBC and then maybe the reception at night at Vancouver somewhere (still thinking).... how do you guys arrange the rundown????
e.g. When to pick up bride? When to have the ceremony? When to start the reception?
How do you guys decide on the time????????
I'm so clueless on the time arrangement!
I mean, do people usually have the ceremony at certain time? And in between the ceremony and the reception, where do the guests go if they will be joining both? etc....
Please give me some hints on this area, thanks so much!!!!

tofu

1.  normal, usually friends or co-workers who are not too close to you.  they may not want to enter your banquet, since they need to prepare gifts and it is boring(they don't know anyone else).  

2.  depends on the time and schedule.  let say your ceremony starts at 10am and you are going to take pic with each one, then you better prepare some foods.  if your ceremony only takes an hour, probably don't need it.

fibbi

Dear All,

Thanks so much for your feedbacks!!! They're very useful for me as reference!
Please all ...
gugu123 發表於 2010-6-29 21:05

Say if your ceremony is at 2pm, then it probably goes until 4 (included some photo shoot time w/ friends/relatives).
Then between 4pm to 5pm, photo shoot around Vancouver! (UBC would be good coz you can take picture in the beach, or any architecture within UBC.
Then 5-6pm, makeup and change to another style, or have a break/drink.
6pm need to go to the dinner location la. 六時恭候，七時入席嘛.

So if your ceremony is 2pm, then pickup bride at around 11? depends on where u live la..coz need to allow some travel time too.
then after pickup bride, usually tea ceremony for about half an hour or so, then already 12 la. Then just have some light lunch, take off around 12:45 la, when ceremony is at 2pm people will start arriving after 1:30...so the wedding party should get there before 1:30 la...

Hope that will give u some idea...

www.hee.ca

回復 6# gugu123


    When is the date? Rose Garden does not look good all year long =). One of the photographers of our team shot there before for portraits, the roses were ok during Aug last year. Another location with roses in August could be Burnaby Mountain, it looks like this:



Schedule is flexible, fibbi suggested a typical chinese timeline, of course everyone is different. You should first of all check with the venues for the availability, confirm the booking then set the times.

布小熊

回復 9# www.hee.ca
I think it's better to find available time of the venues first.  
Sounds like you want an ourdoor wedding, so it will be next summer? A lot of the popular venues are booked for this summer already. But I think most roses are blooming in the spring (May - June) but weather isn't really that stable during that time...