Huge apologies for not posting for the last few days; I was helping my friend Vicki of Branching Out ~An Event Florist with the most amazing wedding. Here are a couple of observations from the back side of pulling off an event this large.
1. I do not care who you are or what your budget, you can not anticipate what mom nature will have in store for you. As you sit there in January planning your event you should know what flowers and foods will be in season for your August date on a normal basis. What you do not know is that mom nature has a 25 day string of temperatures over 95, with 11 of those over 100 in the works. You can not foresee that that your lovely wedding will fall smack dab in the middle of a drought of near monumental proportions just as the temperature records start dropping like flies. Sometimes what sounded great in January is darn near impossible in reality. So if your caterer tells you that the fresh mint for your Mojito’s looks a lot less than perfect because the crop dried out or the flowers that should have looked perfect for several days are wilted half way through the day realize that if there had been anything they could have done differently, they would have bent over backwards to do it. As a bride, you have to be flexible and understand that the professionals you are working with are as much at the mercy of the weather as you are.
2. As you plan, schedule in some free time for your guests. This weekend there were events scheduled non-stop. Luncheon on Friday followed by the rehearsal, Greek dance lessons and then the rehearsal dinner. On Saturday another luncheon, the wedding and reception and a 9:00AM brunch on Sunday. We went to breakdown the reception at the appointed time of 12:30 Saturday night fully expecting the party to still be in full swing since this was a very large, very partying type crowd. But no, not only were we able to walk right in and start breakdown, it seems that the event had actually wound down fifteen minutes earlier than expected. By the time midnight on Saturday rolled around everyone was so worn out that they were all ready to turn into pumpkins. I wasn’t there but I bet there were quite a few no shows at that 9 AM brunch. Any hostess wants to make sure that her guests are entertained, but sometimes a nap is entertainment enough.
