The Wedding Planners: At Home Wedding ... Forget-Me-Nots

Thursday, August 14, 2008

At Home Wedding ... Forget-Me-Nots

No, not the flowers! The important things every bride needs to remember to have a successful at-home wedding!

1. A reputable wedding planner can be crucial if you choose to tie the knot in an home wedding. Wedding planners bring experience and expertise to the table. And they know the best place to rent that table, along with the other tables, chairs, floor runners and enough canopies to provide shelter for everyone in case of inclement weather.

2. A home wedding requires more than a few laps around the yard with a lawn mower the day before the wedding. Necessary for a wedding - mowed lawns, swept or shoveled walkways, trimmed hedges, tidy flower beds, and freshly painted fences. Don’t despair if the yard doesn’t have shrubbery, flowers, fences or fixtures. None of them are required for an at home wedding or a successful marriage. Insisting on newly-planted decorative trees and shrubs only adds stress to you and your parents. A few well placed potted plants can bring the garden look you want!

3. An adequate parking area is a must unless the happy couple don’t mind exchanging their vows over a hood or trunk. While your driveway and side yard may provide enough parking space for immediate family and a few friends, a guest list of several hundred equals a need for numerous parking spots. One creative couple in our town obtained permission for their guests to park at the local grade school and hired buses from a local tour company to shuttle guests to the wedding.

4. The homeowners of the chosen location may see a wedding as a perfect opportunity to remodel a downstairs bathroom and hallway, paint the living room, or add a few touches to other rooms the guests are likely to visit. A home wedding should not be used as an excuse to obtain a second mortgage or massive home improvement loan and redo an entire house. One of my son’s friend married at home and while her father figures he saved ten thousand dollars on wedding expenses, he borrowed more than double that amount for home improvements. Years later, he’s still paying for improvements not a single guest ever saw; the remodeled family room and extra bedroom are empty except when his grandchildren visit occasionally.

5. The bride, the groom, and the wedding party have a responsibility to stop stressing and remember the purpose of this day together. Nothing, not sun, rain or snow, forgotten flower arrangements, dropped rings, crying flower girls or any other so-called disaster can detract from the real reason you’re marrying your beloved. This day, this wedding is all about the beginning of your life together.

Denise

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...: I've always thought as a home wedding as a way to really cut costs and still have friends and family share in the moment. I saw a lovely garden wedding once in which the couple were married in front of their grandparents' pretty climbing roses. Nothing elaborate--no wedding planner, no added potted plants, but sweet and special to them. And everyone just parked along the edge of the road for a long, long ways down the road.; August 14, 2008 at 11:06 AM
Julie Hilton Steele said...: I wanted to get married at home but my mom didn't want the stress....now decades later looking at this list, I can see her point!

One caveat about mowing the lawn. Do not do it the day before, but at least two to three days before...newly cut grass sticks to and stains shoes, clothes and especially the bride's gown if it is long!

Peace, Julie; August 14, 2008 at 3:35 PM