Did anyone do a reception at home after your wedding?

[princessblueeyzes]

Hi. I have been trying to make plans for our Intimate wedding for December 2006, but since we can only invite 18 people, my parents want me to have a reception after the wedding and honeymoon here at home. I don't know if it is ok to have a reception, as not many people are going to be invited to the wedding? Any thoughts or ideas? Is it proper to have a reception and invite people that were not invited to the wedding. I'm confused and need help.

 

[pixie08]

I do not think there is anything wrong with that at all! I am not the "etiquette" person or anything,but we were thinking of doing the same thing if oinly half of our invitees come to wdw! You are doing a destination wedding so it is not improper...I would not make the home recprtion formal or anything...we were thinking a brunch or lunch type thing so people do not feel obligated to give an extravagant gift...good luck!

 

[cryssi]

We got married at DL, being as how all of our family is in either NoCal or SoCal. However, we were only able to invite our nearest and dearest to the Disney wedding. We had a larger banquet the next day (!) where we invited additional friends and co-workers who we were unable to invite to the wedding.

I think it's perfectly fine to have an at-home reception...I think many brides here on this board have done just that. If we had gone ahead with our WDW wedding, we probably would have had a reception at home too simply because a lot of people wouldn't have been able to travel all the way to FL.

good luck!

c

 

[engagedatWDW]

I think that this sort of thing has become more acceptable since "desination weddings" have become more popular. We plan on doing this after our Intimate wedding next year too. We're deciding if we want to rent a place or do an "Open House" at my brother's place. There's always going to be family and friends that want to see the ceremony, but you can't please everyone. At the reception we plan on having tons of pictures and a screening of the ceremony so people can still "see" it even if they weren't there. People keep asking me if I'm going to wear my dress at the Reception. This never really occurred to me, but apparently that's the one thing most people are concerned with. I don't think I will, just for comfort sake and because I want it to be more casual .

 

[princessblueeyzes]

Thanks. I'll have to start checking into that now, I think that's going to be the hardest part of the planning. I already know what I want with DFTW, now the hard part is planning the home reception. How long after your weddings did you do your home receptions? If you don't mind me asking.

 

[melmel]

I'm having mine in Feb. With us getting back the week before Christmas it's the closest to the wedding that we could do without it being too busy a time of year. We're doing a very infomal lunchen. We rented a hall, and are having deli trays, soup, veg platter, salads, meatballs, party foods basically, and of course CAKE hehe (we're acutally getting a wedding cake made but only because we have a friend doing it cheap). I'm not wearing my dress, the party will be a jeans kind of affair but we did consider doing an actual reception with the dress and dj and whole nine yards, it's just a matter of what you want, and how much you want to spend. I think there is nothing wrong with having an after wedding reception, it gives everyone a chance to celebrate with you and see your beautiful pics, and videos. Everyone we've talked to has been excited about it, in fact it helped to calm a few people who were mad that they weren't invited to the wedding.

Hope this helps.

Melissa

 

[Luvndisney]

it is perfectly acceptable to have a 2nd reception once you get home. The reality is not everyone can invite 150 people to their wedding and even if they could not everyone can fly down for a wedding. I say go for it. The second reception does not have to be big..it could be a small barbeque or gathering to celebrate your marriage.

 

[princessblueeyzes]

Thanks for all the advice, I thought about maybe Feburary,since the wedding is in December, but didn't know if it is too far away from the Wedding.

 

[Tinkerbelle14]

We will be having an at home reception at the winery I currently work for (probably won't by then!) the weekend after we return from our honeymoon. This actually made any of the family members that were upset, about not coming to the wedding, happier b/c they at least get to come to some kind of celebration!

 

[Mary626]

My sister had a reception at home (she got married at the Swan & Dolphin with just immediate family). She had it at a banquet hall and she wore her wedding dress there and got another cake. She hired an accordion player and it turned out to be a lot of fun! Noone minded if they werent invited to the actual wedding or not. It was a lot of fun and a nice opportunity to wear your wedding dress again if you are so inclined!

 

[Codie]

I did it like Mary626's sister...it was AWEsome My only regret is that we did it the day after we got home from our honeymoon and it was an exhausting adventure. We did a "cocktail" reception (I put it in quotes because the food was so much more than cocktail...the reception place did a fabulous job!!! I LOVED that I got to wear my dress again and everyone else loved it too. So many people thanked me for having a second party and for wearing my dress again. My bm's wore their dresses again too!! We used Randy for photography and he got us our CD of pictures before we left Disney, so we put those on a slide show that ran during the whole cocktail reception.
PS--the cocktail reception cost us $32 per person for food and alcohol (beer/wine only), music dj, for three hours, cake, centerpieces, favors, everything!! It was perfect I highly recommend doing an at home reception. I did two seperate invites...one for each party and so no one had to feel left out.

 

[D&R love Disney]

We had a reception 2 months after our intimate wedding. We had 120 people at the party and basically it was a party. I wore my wedding dress but all the guests came casual. It was lots of fun. We had it at a hall that we decorated ourselves. It was catered and we had a dj.

 

[FutureAshleyDukes]

We're also having a reception back home when we return.

 

[princessblueeyzes]

Thanks for all your help. I guess I will start looking where to have a reception at when we get back. Also thanks for the advice of not having it right when I get back-that may be too much for me to handel. I think I will plan it for 2 months after the wedding.

 

[Laurafoster]

I think i may end up having to do some sort of "reception" when we get back. Think i would probably go for a nice meal though - something a bit mroe relaxed and less formal.

 

[ahutton]

We had a small reception when we got home for our friends who did not make the trip, and a few who did. We decided to have our get together on New Years Eve, at home. We normally would have done something with this group of friends, so it was perfect timing. We ordered a cake and had all the one time use camera pictures out for people to look at. The wedding was 12/6 - we had gotten home on 12/21. I did most of the shopping before we left (the wine, bar stuff) and ordered trays and cake. Then I called to confirm a couple days before, and picked it up after lunch that day.