I got married August 24 which was a Friday. We had a 6:30pm start which allowed guest to miss rush hour traffic as our venue was downtown . I know alot of people have qualms about Friday weddings but only a few guest declined. I would say if you can save money having a Friday wedding go for it !
Our wedding was at the Westin Hotel in downtown Cleveland. We invited 64 guest ; 57 rsvp'd yes,6 declined,1 no show. No shows suck!! Our venue coordinator advised us to underestimate our final count to accommodate no shows. Thank you for that tip!
We decided to spend the night before together at the hotel. I know alot of people dont agree with this but it was a perfect way for us to relax and practice our first dance lol.
Our wedding day was pretty stress free. I got up around 7am and was off to the hair salon by 8am. I was back to the hotel by noon . We had a few sandwich trays and snacks in our room to munch on. This was a big hit because everyone apparently forgot to eat . Make sure you eat even if you arent hungry.
The make up artist and photographer both arrived around 2pm . At that point the groom was kick out and sent to his moms room to get ready. Our first look/pre ceremony pictures were scheduled for 4pm. Those took about 2 hours. We were back to the hotel by 6pm. I let the photographer take full control of all things photo wise. She was amazing!!
To my surprise majority of our guest were already seated at 6pm. Our folks are always late so I was excited. Our ceremony started promptly at 6:30pm and lasted about 30 minutes . After the ceremony the hotel staff had drinks waiting for us ! Yay!!big bonus. I was finally able to take off my 4 inch heels and put on my Kate Spade Keds !! This was by far my best wedding purchase . If you are on the fence about comfy shoes . Do it !
We took family photos at the start cocktail hour. Those took about 30 minutes, so were able to mingle with our guest afterwards. For cocktail hour we had a full open bar and 2 signature drinks. Our yummy appetizers included; mini beef wellingtons, veggie spring rolls, chicken satay and bruschetta crostini. Having great food and drinks were so important to us so we splurged a lot here.
Our reception was held in a separate ballroom from the ceremony. That was hubby's only request. Separate rooms within the same venue. I highly recommend using one venue if at all possible. It's so much more convenient and saves time.
There was one small snag at the start of reception. I forgot to double check the placecards so an entire table was missing! I did have a mini freak out but the venue coordinator handled it. No biggie. We served a plated dinner . Our guest picked from either a semi boneless chicken breast or bonless braised beef short ribs with garlic mash and roasted carrots . For dessert, we had 5 different types of cupcakes. Everything was really delicious. It didnt taste like the typically wedding banquet food which was my biggest concern.
If you want a party at your reception hire a great DJ! Our DJ had the dance floor full all night long. I was terribly afraid no one would dance because we had such a small guest list. So bonus points for the DJ. One issue only I noticed was the DJ went didnt follow the timeline. So we had our first dance way before we should've but no one knew!
During the cake cutting my husband fed himself cake instead of me lol! That was hilarious . He said he didnt know he was supposed to feed me. We have it on video so he will never live that down. That leads me to say if you can in anyway figure out how to have a videographer or have some record your event. Please do so! Pictures are great but videos capture everything. We had an amateur videographer, who did a really great job. I was always anti-wedding video and I have watched ours 6 times ! So if you think you wont watch it, trust me you will.
My last piece of advised would be to enjoy every minute of your day. Eat your dinner, drink a few drinks and dance the night away because it will go so fast. No one will know if the cake cutting was supposed to be after the toast or if you wear sneakers under your dress. Dont stress the small stuff. The only thing that matters is that you married your forever person!!
Now some pictures.
