reception – All In The Invite

May 25, 2012May 21, 2012

8 Ways To Keep Your Wedding Guests Happy

When you start planning your wedding, you will be consumed with details that might take months to complete. Think about it. You’ve got to make decisions about the ceremony, receptions, rehearsals, attendants, flowers, food, music, your dress, decorations, a honeymoon to plan and wedding guests to accommodate, to name just a few.

Don’t Make Them Travel Too Far

Think about the logistics of your wedding, your reception and the hotel/motel accommodations you’ve arranged for out-of-town guests. Since popular site bookings for weddings tend to fill up early, it would be a good idea to book your wedding site, reception hall and the overnight accommodations for your guests as early as possible in order to get them reasonably close to each other.

Pass on the receiving line

Thank each guest for coming during the reception (table by table or as a toast) and don’t hold up the party by having a receiving line. Trust us, your guests will appreciate not having to wait around after the ceremony.

Plan Your Menu Carefully

Food is another possible mistake at your reception. Your guests will be hungry and hors devours and a supply of cold soft drinks will be welcomed by those who arrive at the ceremony before the bride and groom. If you are serving the traditional reception meal, stick to customary food. You will be serving a meal to many guests with many different tastes and tolerances for food. Your taste for exotic dishes or ethnic selections will not be a hit at your reception with children and those with tender stomachs. Any caterer can help you with your food selection. It might be a good idea to send a request for information about any food allergies to your reception guests along with your invitation.

The Never Ending Speech

While guests appreciate the sentiment of wedding speeches, sometimes they can be too much of a good thing. If you have many people speaking–even if the speeches are good ones–it can become boring for the guests. Harsh? Perhaps. True? Definitely. Keep it as short and sweet as possible and should be refreshing for guests to hear.

Two Strangers and a Wedding

Nobody likes being at a table of strangers. A table where strangers are all seated together will be very uncomfortable for your guests. You should attempt to strike a balance and arrange a mixture of guests where everyone knows a few people at their table. This way everyone will feel comfortable chatting with him or her and have a great time at the reception.

Stick To Your Timeline

Sticking to your time frame will keep prompt guests happy. Consider hiring a wedding planner. They keep you on track. They live by their calendar, their lists, and their plans. They are super organized and make sure that you are always on track and on schedule with your wedding plans. They are the “mothers” of the wedding world. Don’t write the start time on your wedding invitation as 4:30pm if you really meant the ceremony to start at 5 pm.

I Can’t See Who I’m Sitting With

Table centerpieces are a key element to dressing your room although they can sometimes cause issues for your guests. Choose low floral arrangements or something high with a thin stem so that the main arrangement is above eye level. This will make it easier for everyone on the table to see and talk to each other, helping them feel involved in the conversation.

We have to pay for our drinks?

Having a cash bar, is a big don’t. All ceremony and reception costs should be covered. If the bar is breaking your budget, scale back by limiting what type of alcohol is served. Most guests feel that if they are going to the time and expense of attending your wedding, the least the happy couple can do is make sure they don’t have to peck their way through the Chicken Dance stone cold sober.

April 26, 2012May 2, 2012

Wedding Wine Guide

Primer for Buying Wine

An easy manual for making one part of your own special day forgettable

No, we’re not encouraging you to serve cheap tasting wine to your guests. We’re providing you with an easy guide that will make selecting your wines an easy task. One you can quickly check off from your to-do list. So relax, pour a glass of wine and browse through these tips for a successful celebration. Make your choices and forget about it!

Where Do I Begin?

Start out planning to stock one white and one red, plus a sparkling for the toast.

How Much Should I Plan to Buy?

Typically, the rule is two glasses of wine per person one glass of sparkling wine for the toast and additionally a glass of wine per hour after the first three hours.

Generally servings of sparkling wine are less than when serving red or white wine. You can plan on getting 8 glasses from sparkling wine and typically six glasses from a bottle of red or white wine.

How Do I Calculate What I’ll Need?

Let’s use a round number. {It’s easier that way} Round your number up or down accordingly. We’ll go with 20 guests.

Remember you can expect to get 8 glasses from a bottle of sparkling wine and 6 from the table wine.

Let’s start with sparkling wine used for the toast:

20 guests x 1 glass per person = 20 glasses/8 glasses per bottle = 3 bottles

Now let’s calculate the table wine:

20 guests x 2 glasses per person = 40 glasses/6 glasses per bottle = 7 bottles

Plan to purchase 3 bottles of sparkling, 7 red and 7 white bottles of wine.

Do Your Friends Like to Drink?

You’ll need to take this into consideration. The younger the crowd the more alcohol is consumed. If this is the case consider bumping up the minimum:

Sparkling wine:
(20 people x 2 glasses per person = 40 glasses/8 glasses per bottle = 5 bottles)

Table wine
(20 people x 3 glasses per person = 60 glasses/6 glasses per bottle = 10 bottles)

Using this revised formula plan to purchase 5 bottles of sparkling, 10 red and 10 white bottles of wine.

But What About The Other Alcohol?

An open bar is important in factoring how much wine you’ll need for your party. That earlier figure could very well drop by more than half. On the other hand, if you’re only serving beer, wine and champagne and you have bunch of drinkers, that figure could increase by 25% to 50%.

How Do I Account for the Open Bar?

For an open bar you might want to include .75 glasses per hour as the consumption rate. If you’re party will last longer than the initially calculated three hours consider this as well. Let’s bump up the party duration to five hours. You’ll need an extra 5 bottles added to the total calculated above. This would bring your total to 10 bottles of table wine.

Your formula would look like this:

(20 people x 2 extra hours x .75 glasses per person = 30 glasses/ 6 glasses per bottle = 5 extra bottles)

If you’re not having an open bar but serving a thirsty crowd consider using 1.25 glasses per hour as your consumption rate. You’ll need an extra eight bottles added to the total calculated. This would bring your total to eighteen bottles of table wine.

Your formula would look like this:

(20 people x 2 extra hours x 1.25 glasses per person = 50 glasses/ 6 glasses per bottle = 8 extra bottles)

Remember, all you need to figure out how much wine to buy is a basic math formula and calculated guesses.

March 29, 2012May 2, 2012

What to Think About When Deciding on Wine For Your Wedding Reception

Wine has long been offered at wedding receptions ever since the start of time. Nonetheless, sampling as well as picking out your wine for your own personal wedding and reception is surely a significant as well as tricky task. While organizing a wedding and reception or just about any important significant celebration, paying attention to the particulars tends to make the main difference in just how unforgettable your “special ” moment will be to you as well as your family and friends.

Deciding on your wine is without a doubt an essential element-a detail that shouldn’t be neglected. Tastings with caterers as well bakers for your wedding cake are all done well in advance to select what will be served, why then would you not pair the wines ahead of time, as well? Don’t risk it, decide early on. There are also many other things to consider when buying and selecting the wine to serve at your wedding reception.

Your Guests

Exactly what wines do you really enjoy? Think about your family and friends? Do they like red, white, sparkling, or a dessert wine? Will the attendees like 1 or 2 truly impressive glasses of wine to drink while they mingle. Or perhaps, it might be wines are not really important to any of your guests?

Time of Day

Will you be having an evening or an afternoon ceremony? Many people may possibly consume a little bit less during a daytime wedding compared to an evening ceremony. (drink more than a glass of wine in the afternoon, and you may be ready to go to bed even though the party is not nearly over)

Time of Year

Is the wedding reception planned for the middle of the summer months or the winter season? That could very well matter to just what you select and offer your guests-are you trying to warm them up or cool them off?

What’s Your Budget?

Given that a lot of people don’t expect to have a limitless budget allowed to shell out on vino, you’ll definitely want to think about the price tag. There could possibly be room to make a deal on the wine purchase up-front in a package deal. As you are planning to shell out hard-earned cash on a wedding, you might possibly make a deal on your purchase when you’re planning to bring in a particular wine. It’s worth a try!

Glasses

Amazingly, pouring wines into a wine glass designed for that specific wine type can certainly make a difference in the taste as well. Quite a few wedding reception venues might not have varied wine glasses intended for different kinds of wines, however it’s well worth inquiring. If not, that will definitely be an expense to consider as well.

What to Serve for the Toast?

Probably one of the most unforgettable memories from a wedding reception is definitely the toast. The most expensive bubbly is Champagne, but that does not necessarily mean it is the best. You don’t have to serve Champagne for the toast. What about it’s cheaper or just as cheery cousins, sparkling wines. They offer a serious bang for the buck and it’s every bit as festive as Champagne and hey, if you’re worried your guests will feel slighted, pour it in another room and come out bearing a festive tray of pre-filled glasses. Chances are they’ll never know the difference and if they do judge you – well, that’s just bad manners on their part.