The Wedding Blog

I’m excited about having a wedding…finally!

In the previous post you learned of how I began the journey from “I want to forget all this wedding nonsense” to “Oh yeah, this is all about celebrating US.” Well, today I am pleased to announce that I’ve made it to “I really want to have a wedding and I’m excited to plan it and can’t wait for it to come!” That’s a big change and it only happened yesterday. Let me explain.

Wednesday has always been the day when Darren and I get together; either he comes to St. Catharines or I go to Hamilton, but usually the former. However, since the Great Reception Hall Quest began, we’ve been making arrangements to visit potential halls on Wednesday nights (and Saturdays…pretty much anytime I could be in the city). So I rushed home from the ESL graduation ceremony to head to Hamilton to visit a couple of locations. The second was so scary that we didn’t even talk to anyone. The first was the same as everything else we’d seen up to that point except the guy was much friendlier and funnier than anyone else.

That experience convinced me that we had to take drastic measures. The timing was good…2 things had happened that day that started me reconsidering the whole wedding reception thing.

First, the valedictorian for the level 5 class (I am one of their 3 teachers) included in his speech that I was newly engaged and said he hoped he could come to the wedding “if there is an extra chair for [him].” My thought was that it’s not the chair, it’s the plate…but I just smiled.

Second, I was speaking with a coworker immediately after the ceremony - my usual complaint about halls and prices and dinners… if you’ve gotten married in the last little while, you’ll know what I’m talking about. She told me that she and her husband got married alone on a beach in the Bahamas, followed by an informal reception back in Canada. It sounded so fabulous! That started a thought process that continued as I drove to Hamilton.

For a few days Darren and I had been reconsidering the entire dance thing, thinking that we had removed from the list many of the people who would really enjoy that part of the evening. At $40. a plate (and that’s without alcohol!), we had had to reduce the list to only those who were either related to us or very, very good friends. Our families aren’t big partiers and a dance is not really fun if there are only 10 people participating. So we were thinking of alternate ways to spend the evening. But since there are few things to do in such an atmosphere but dance, we were stuck.

So I started thinking about what was important to me. I want to enjoy the evening with all the people I care about. I want to take some nice pictures with my family and bridal party. I want to have a nice ceremony in a church. But not necessarily in that order.

Here’s the solution I came up with: We push the wedding up to early evening. It’s a Friday night so people can finish their work days, grab some dinner and then come to the ceremony. It would be followed immediately (allowing half an hour for travel) by the reception and party! This reception would have an hors d’oeurves-type buffet, wedding cake, etc. but no formal dinner. That allows us to invite whomever we want (almost). In the afternoon when the weather is nice we can take our pictures and then the immediate family, bridal party and select guests (very, very select) can have a quiet dinner in a restaurant somewhere. It would look something like this:

2:00 photos
5:00 intimate dinner
7:30 ceremony
9:00 reception/party

It’s a little non-traditional, but it meets all the requirements and desires we have. It’s perfect! Now, to convince my boy.

As I said earlier, we had these appointments to see a couple of banquet halls that evening. In truth, I went only because they had been made. My heart wasn’t in it anymore, but I sure didn’t think Darren would agree to my plan.

I think Darren was frustrated, too. We simply can’t afford a typical wedding unless we reduce our guest list to the bare minimum. So, I took advantage of the disheartened state we were in and presented my idea over dinner. I was pleasantly surprised when his reaction was “that may work.” Usually I’d be disappointed with a semi-convinced response, but the words “That may work” made me happier than I’d been in weeks!

The more we talked about it, the more feasible and wonderful this arrangement seemed. And the more excited I became. In fact, last night I had a hard time getting to sleep because I was so excited about this wedding. You know what is the most exciting for me? I can now imagine getting a response from friends and rather than thinking “that’s 90 bucks out the window,” I can think “Hooray! They will be joining the party!” That is a complete change of heart.

Of course there are a lot of kinks in the plan to work out still, and we’re going to have to start all over with the hall search (with much different criteria this time) but the difference is that I want to do it now.

So if you get an invitation to a dinnerless reception, please understand that it’s because we want to celebrate with you without thinking about cost. We want to enjoy your company unhindered. Hooray!