questions/survey for people having at home reception

[dakcp2001]

Just looking for ideas and suggestions for an at home reception, as we are doing a very small Escape wedding and would like to have a celebration at home after. I REALLY need some help and suggestions please!

So far, I am leaning towards a fun outdoor BBQ at my parents house, since they have a big yard and a pool. I want to have it catered so they wont have to miss the fun by having to cook. But if it rains, I think we would just have to still have it, no rain date back up if you ahve a caterer/dj etc, right?

Are you having your at home reception at a hall, resteraunt or home?

If at a home, what will you do about parking?

Are you having it catered?

Any DJ or band? I think a DJ would be fun but havent looked at cost yet, and not sure the neighbors would enjoy it! Possibly an IPOD set up? Or just a radio, like a regular BBQ?

Are you having a theme?

How much are you budgeting for it, when compared to Disney wedding? I am really hoping to keep it affordable, but not "cheap"

How many guests will you have?

Anyone having a BBQ? If I am having it catered, I dont think I can do a rain date?

Are you asking people not to bring gifts? I'm worried people might be offended that they were not invited to the actual wedding,and may feel its just a gift thing, which it is not! I was leaning towards saying no gifts, but my parents think that THAT is more tacky.

How far after your actual wedding is the at home reception?


As for advice, should I just suck it up and rent a hall to avoid the rain situation? Or just have the party rain or shine and hope for the shine?

Any suggestions, please help! I am thinking of poss 75-100 invites tops. I am hoping to do a BBQ type/open house thing so people can come & go all day, rather than having everyone try to park all at once.

 

[lurkyloo]

Ours was a very casual open house, so I don't have any info about DJs, hall rental, etc. We invited 125 people, and over the course of 5 hours I would say about 50 or 60 people came over. My inlaws' house isn't very big, but we managed to have everything inside, and people mostly hung out in the kitchen/living room area or the family room. We didn't really even think about parking - whoops! I guess people just parked around the neighborhood.

My inlaws put out sandwich fixings and a couple of crockpot dishes, and some people brought desserts. I made a cake. I think all it cost was the price of food, since we had leftover paper products from our engagement party.

What else... we played our wedding reception playlists on an iPod and showed our wedding video on a loop in the family room. We passed around Blurb books of our photos. And at one point we opened gifts, but that was not part of the plan cuz we didn't think anyone would bring gifts. When she saw how many gifts people had brought, DH's grandma asked us to open them right then, so it kinda turned into a shower. I was not sure this was proper reception ettiquette, but people were having fun and no one seemed scandalized by it!

 

[DisneyBrideToni]

We are having about 160 people at a hall here in Jersey. Its not a fancy hall. Actually I didn't really have any say in the whole location thing since my MIL is paying for it. I didn't really care either since I had my thing in Disney so I am just going with the flow.

We are going to have different colors (teal and magenta) it will be a sort of Disney themed event since we are going to post pictures of the Disney wedding and use some of the same decor we had in Disney.

We are treating it just like a real wedding reception. We are doing all the dances, the garter toss, bouquet toss, etc. What we are doing first is showing everyone a video of the ceremony. It will kind of be like they just watched our wedding (as if it was in Jersey) and then the DJ will announce us in just like at a regular reception. It will be pretty fun.

We were going to do the casual BBQ thing but his mom really wanted to do this for us as a wedding gift. Part of the reason was so that we could get gifts. She is bad. We aren't ASKING for gifts but we will have a box to put cards in. I wouldn't tell people to NOT bring gifts. I wouldn't even mention the gift thing and if they feel like bringing something they can and if they don't want to then they won't.

 

[Lorelei528]

Are you having your at home reception at a hall, resteraunt or home?
Are you having it catered?
Any DJ or band? Are you having a theme?
How much are you budgeting for it, when compared to Disney wedding? I am really hoping to keep it affordable, but not "cheap"
How many guests will you have?
Are you asking people not to bring gifts? I'm worried people might be offended that they were not invited to the actual wedding,and may feel its just a gift thing, which it is not! I was leaning towards saying no gifts, but my parents think that THAT is more tacky.
How far after your actual wedding is the at home reception?

We are having our reception at an inn/restaurant. www.kittlehouse.com
We are putting together CD's or an IPOD and they will play the music over their speaker system.
The theme is When You Wish Upon a Star
We were budgeting about $6000 for the food etc. which my mom is paying for and we're paying for the cake, photographer and flowers approx. $2500, approx. half of the Disney wedding. The menu we are doing for the at home reception is $100 pp.
We have to have a minimum of 55 guests, we invited about 65-70ish.
No, we're not telling people to not bring gifts...I agree with your parents, usually the less said the better. If people really don't want to give you a gift, they won't.
Our at home reception is June 21, approx. 6 weeks after our Disney Wedding....

We are planning on showing photos and video if possible (still have to talk to Randy and Stan about getting stuff by then) of the Disney Wedding and we will have our first dance to "When you wish upon a Star"....but will also dance to "Flowers in the Window" by Travis for sure among others....

HTH!

 

[Bride-to-be]

I am sorry I can't really help with the at home wedding bit. If it were me, I would just have a big bbq and ask family members we were close to to all bring something and just let everyone come and hang out and have fun. I think the ipod idea is great. Maybe you could just order a bunch of party trays to keep it simple. Then if you had to have a rain date you wouldn't lose a ton of $$$.

I do have questions about gift ettiquette because now I am really confused. Because we are doing a disney cruise wedding and people are going to have to pay for passports and some for flights down and park tickets etc - we were not going to register and specifically say no gifts on the invitations. I just don't want people to have to spend any more on our wedding when they are already spending to come and be a part of it. Whats the proper thing to do? Should we just skip the no presents thing, I feel like since its our first wedding and everyone will be there for the ceremony that everyone will feel obligated to bring us a present unless we say no gifts.

My other concern is that if we say no gifts I don't want people to get the wrong idea and think that we want cash - because that would be even worse.

What should we write?

 

[MegKate]

Are you having your at home reception at a hall, resteraunt or home? We're having it at home near Christmas

If at a home, what will you do about parking? We live down the street from an elementry school, so overflow parking will go down there, but it shouldn't be a problem.

Are you having it catered? If there was someone up here who I thought was capable of cooking for hire, I would have it catered! But alas, we're just going to have a potluck

Any DJ or band? I think a DJ would be fun but havent looked at cost yet, and not sure the neighbors would enjoy it! Possibly an IPOD set up? Or just a radio, like a regular BBQ? We're doing IPOD.

Are you having a theme? Christmas I guess! LOL - By the time we get pictures and all, it will be about that time.

How much are you budgeting for it, when compared to Disney wedding? I am really hoping to keep it affordable, but not "cheap" Probably a couple hundred on fud.

How many guests will you have? It's going to be open house, so we're going to invite about 50 or so.

Anyone having a BBQ? If I am having it catered, I dont think I can do a rain date? Not in Northern Maine in December!

Are you asking people not to bring gifts? I'm worried people might be offended that they were not invited to the actual wedding,and may feel its just a gift thing, which it is not! I was leaning towards saying no gifts, but my parents think that THAT is more tacky. They can bring a gift if they want, but I'm not looking for one. I do think NO GIFTS is tacky.

How far after your actual wedding is the at home reception? 2 months


As for advice, should I just suck it up and rent a hall to avoid the rain situation? Or just have the party rain or shine and hope for the shine? Have the party rain or shine! Rain can be fun!

 

[pink_tink8i8]

Great format MegKate!

Are you having your at home reception at a hall, restaurant or home? I'm thinking of having mine at a hall or an art gallery

If at a home, what will you do about parking?

Are you having it catered? if I am having it at the art gallery it has to be catered but if I have it in a hall I think I'm going to bring the food

Any DJ or band? I think a DJ would be fun but havent looked at cost yet, and not sure the neighbors would enjoy it! Possibly an IPOD set up? Or just a radio, like a regular BBQ? possibly a DJ but probably an ipod. I went to an outdoor wedding last year and they had a radio set up and the neighbors were really cool about it. Maybe not at like 10 pm but if you have it early enough

Are you having a theme? disney theme

How much are you budgeting for it, when compared to Disney wedding? I am really hoping to keep it affordable, but not "cheap". I'd prefer to spend less than $2000

How many guests will you have? 50-60 mainly family who can't come to the disney wedding

Anyone having a BBQ? If I am having it catered, I dont think I can do a rain date?

Are you asking people not to bring gifts? I'm worried people might be offended that they were not invited to the actual wedding,and may feel its just a gift thing, which it is not! I was leaning towards saying no gifts, but my parents think that THAT is more tacky. I'm not asking for gifts

How far after your actual wedding is the at home reception? maybe a couple of weeks to 2 months after

 

[NikkiPants]

My fiancee wants something kind of big, as our wedding is only going to be like 14 people or something. So we're doing the whole sha-bang and basically having a reception a few months after our actual wedding. I'm origially from Massachusetts and we will be moving back there after our wedding, so we will have our reception in Boston somewhere. She found a place she really likes called Veronique in Brookline, so we will probably go with that. Our friends and extended family at home are really upset that they can't come to our ceremony, so that's another reason we're going with a reception, so that they can feel involved. Plus, I am getting a rockin' poofy dress and I need to wear it more than once!


I think you should rock the backyard openhouse idea. It would be really fun! Would you make it informal? I love informal parties. And I like the idea of it being all day long so people can come as they please.
As far as parking goes, we had a 50th birthday party for my mum last year and I will tell you, the parking was annoying. We have 8 cars at my house and a 4 car driveway, but we needed the whole street. But a great suggestion I have is that any cars that you have there, ask a friend who will be coming or something if you can put the cars at their house except one or something. That way there is a least a little more room.

 

[CinderelliT]

We are going to do an at home reception too, since no one is coming on the cruise with us. We are going to do it at an artist's home called Soloman's Castle (It is really a castle made out of recycled material ) or at Kiwana's Park.

I think that we will invite about 50 people and it will be Disney themed.

We will have a pot luck dinner if it is at the park, or the Castle's restaurant will cater if we have it there. ($21.00/person)

This is for an anniversary celebration, so I doubt we have to worry about presents!

No rain dates for us!

I want to make an entrance in my dress - I've got to wear it as much as possible! Since we will have like a mini-ceremony. My DH and I want to say a few words together in front of our guests. After that, we will change so it will be a little more casual. I want it to have a fun vibe with cotton candy and popcorn , disney movies, etc.

We will also have a slide show up that start with us at the beginning and goes through our 10yrs together and then shows our VR.

I plan on spending around $2000 for the whole ordeal, so we will probably have it a couple of months after our VR. (It's in Dec. and we are looking at March for our party).

Also, one time I wrote "No presents necessary" on a birthday party invite, and I got so much slack for it! I just would not write anything on it!

 

[Luvableoldonkey]

Are you having your at home reception at a hall, restaurant or home? We are planning on having it in a hall.

If at a home, what will you do about parking?

Are you having it catered? Yes

Any DJ or band? I think a DJ would be fun but haven’t looked at cost yet, and not sure the neighbors would enjoy it! Possibly an IPOD set up? Or just a radio, like a regular BBQ? I'm having a DJ. But I think for a BBQ I would do an IPOD.

Are you having a theme? We are getting married in December, so Christmas! I wanted a fun Disney wedding and an elegant wedding, so we decided to have the fun part in Disney and then do the elegant at home, with subtle Disney undertones.

How much are you budgeting for it, when compared to Disney wedding? Overall, I have a complete budget of 29,000 ish. This is for everything including the Disney portion, flights, hotel, gown, hair, welcome presents ect. ect. The portion set aside for the Disney Wedding is 14, 000.

How many guests will you have? In Disney we are having a wishes wedding with 20 guests, just our immediate families and one close friend. Then for our home reception we will be having everyone that we would have invited if we would have had a wedding at home, which totals to about 210.

Anyone having a BBQ? If I am having it catered, I don’t think I can do a rain date?

Are you asking people not to bring gifts? I'm worried people might be offended that they were not invited to the actual wedding, and may feel its just a gift thing, which it is not! I was leaning towards saying no gifts, but my parents think that THAT is more tacky. I don’t think people would be offended about not being invited to the Disney wedding and would want to bring you a congratulatory gift. Most people understand the expense that goes into any destination wedding and see the home reception as a celebration.

How far after your actual wedding is the at home reception? This is going to sound crazy but…4 days…

I think the most important thing is that you are happy, if you want a BBQ with no presents then have a BBQ with no presents! Don't worry about what other people think because you and your fiancé will look back at this day for the rest of your lives. My sister still talks about how she wishes she would have just done it her way and stopped listening to everyone else...13 years later. I hope you have a great time whatever you decide!

 

[FutureMrsBane]

Are you having your at home reception at a hall, restaurant or home? Undecided. Probably a hall since we will be inviting over 250 guests.

If at a home, what will you do about parking? Good Question.

Are you having it catered? Yep, a BBQ.

Any DJ or band? We will be having a DJ.

Are you having a theme? We will be having a laid back, fun, with a touch of elegance wedding with a few hidden Disney details.

How much are you budgeting for it, when compared to Disney wedding? Haven't thought that far ahead yet. We are hoping his parents will pay for the at home portion since mine are paying for the Disney portion.

How many guests will you have? We are guessing around 250.

Anyone having a BBQ? Yes, but it will most likely be inside.

Are you asking people not to bring gifts? I'm not worried about gifts, I'm sure people will be bringing them and that is fine if they don't that is fine as well.

How far after your actual wedding is the at home reception? Right after the honeymoon.


We will also have a few words in front of our guests (not vows but something special to each other and from us to them), a slideshow for all of our Disney pictures and we will show our wedding video; we will do the first dance again, possibly cake cutting, and other special dances. It'll be a mini version of the real wedding but bigger!!!

It is turning out to be a fight till the end to get the wedding of my dreams but bygolly I'm going to get it if it kills me!!