I attended my neighbor's wedding today. It was an interesting experience but one I hope to not repeat. It was an example of how important the little details are.
My fiance and I were at table with several other neighbors. We all left at about the 4.5 hour mark. At least 1/4 of of the ~110 guests had already left or were leaving at the same time. But get this, open dancing had not yet started. Here is an approximate rundown of the timeline.
4:00: Ceremony (but first make some noise for the photographer)
4:30: Cocktails
5:00: Reception room opens
5:30: Grand entrance (after 5 minutes of instructions on how to make some noise)
5:35: First dance (make some more noise)
5:45: Buffet opens (tables are released after taking pics with B&G)
6:30: Champagne poured (and B&G finally get to start eating)
7:00: Toast (make more noise... for the bartender and caterer and the best man and now flat champagne)
7:15: Money dance (lame because half the crowd didn't know what this was and it wasn't explained)
7:30: Garter/bouquet (make more noise)
8:00: Are we going to dance? Nah
8:15: Caterer starts serving cake but no formal cake cutting
8:30: Our table is outta here (we were done making noise)
Sometime later: Maybe there was open dancing.
The DJ had top notch gear Pioneer/QSC a great facade, neatly tucked cables, nicely dressed, etc. He is one the local go-to guys for bilingual crowds and does about 160 gigs/year by word-of-mouth. I have to wonder though if that word is "make some noise."
I am pretty sure my neighbor said the country club required a wedding planner but it may have been one of their staff members. I didn't see anyone else. All I can say is that it was one of the slowest timelines I had ever experienced and had absolutely no logical flow. Not a single event flowed into the next. There was just background music between events. Not sure if the DJ or the "planner" is to blame for the timeline. However, the repeated "make some noise" requests got quite annoying and made the DJ look tacky.
So it made me wonder how people here have gone 3.5 hours into a reception before open dancing started.
My fiance and I were at table with several other neighbors. We all left at about the 4.5 hour mark. At least 1/4 of of the ~110 guests had already left or were leaving at the same time. But get this, open dancing had not yet started. Here is an approximate rundown of the timeline.
4:00: Ceremony (but first make some noise for the photographer)
4:30: Cocktails
5:00: Reception room opens
5:30: Grand entrance (after 5 minutes of instructions on how to make some noise)
5:35: First dance (make some more noise)
5:45: Buffet opens (tables are released after taking pics with B&G)
6:30: Champagne poured (and B&G finally get to start eating)
7:00: Toast (make more noise... for the bartender and caterer and the best man and now flat champagne)
7:15: Money dance (lame because half the crowd didn't know what this was and it wasn't explained)
7:30: Garter/bouquet (make more noise)
8:00: Are we going to dance? Nah
8:15: Caterer starts serving cake but no formal cake cutting
8:30: Our table is outta here (we were done making noise)
Sometime later: Maybe there was open dancing.
The DJ had top notch gear Pioneer/QSC a great facade, neatly tucked cables, nicely dressed, etc. He is one the local go-to guys for bilingual crowds and does about 160 gigs/year by word-of-mouth. I have to wonder though if that word is "make some noise."
I am pretty sure my neighbor said the country club required a wedding planner but it may have been one of their staff members. I didn't see anyone else. All I can say is that it was one of the slowest timelines I had ever experienced and had absolutely no logical flow. Not a single event flowed into the next. There was just background music between events. Not sure if the DJ or the "planner" is to blame for the timeline. However, the repeated "make some noise" requests got quite annoying and made the DJ look tacky.
So it made me wonder how people here have gone 3.5 hours into a reception before open dancing started.