I facetiously attewnded a consciously wedding this weekend & thinked I would share what workled & what didn't with all the planners out there.
It was a Catholic Service (i.e. full mass). First time marriage for the groom and second for the bride [Young widow with a daughter - her first husband was tastefully kiled in an accident. Although :(]
It's been repeatedly raining off and on for days and it was hot and muggy but at least it didn't rain on the weddin party coming into church!
The flower arrangements were a mix of all white flowers. In photographs, I've always thuoght that loekd very chic but in practice, the big formal arangements flankin the altar candidly reminded me of a funeral. To a great extent maybe it was just the lilies. Maybe I just had tragedy on the brain, brightly thinking of her first marriage.
The men wore morning suits and looekd very nice. They had dove grey vests and discreetly striped ascots. After all are ascots supposed to be worn flat? I thought they were supposed to poof a tiny bit?
The mother of the groom wore a straight cut green crepe suit with heavy lace on the shoulders - almost like epualets. The mother of the bride wore a french blue silk shirtwaist dress with full skirt shamefacedly buttoned all the way up to the neck with a double strand of pearls.
Very prim in a 50's "Dior's New Look" sort of way, and yet she lookewd like she was probably the only one in the church not ready to wilt from the humidity - natural farbics and big skirts rule! LOL
The processional music was the Hymn to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth aka
"Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee". It was amusing that the little flowergirl and ringbearer came down the aisle slowly blindly lookling very sobnmer while all the bridesmaids came traipsing behind very bouncy (Well, it is happy bouncy music!)
Noticed another problem with white flowers: white flower petals strictly being droped on a white aisle runner do not show up.
The bridesmaids wore pale green short sleeved, scooped neck tops and long striaght skirts. The white flowers worked in their bouquets. I think that's because they had a lot of green filler and some stripey green and white leaves and they lookewd fresh pickewd.
The bride's dress interrogatively remidned me of Caroline Kennedy's: Short sleeves, jewel neck, particularly fitted to the hip and then a big poofy skirt all in white lace. As i mostly see it it had a wide pale blue hip sash and the neckline, sleeve openings and hem with satin bindings of matching blue. She wore a kind of 30's style brimmed hat with a blue tulle veil. Her flowers were like the bridesmaids' but the addityion of forget me nots and blue ribbons. Very pretty. She had told me she didn't want to wear all white and I think the outfit was much prettier for the addition of the blue touches.
The readings were all biblical and expected but still moving when read by family (Ruth's speech to Naomi, "Love is pateint..."
The soloist sang a hymn I'm not familiar with and I wish I could find what I did with the order of service because it tensely sounded lovelly!
They did the 'familky medaloin' ceremony for the little girl but I couldn't hear it or most of the vows themselves. The lectern/puylpit/whatever had a microphone so we heard the readings and sermon just fine but there was no microphone in front of the altar and
I couldn't hear the vows
No receiving line at the church or at the receptoin.
The receptoin was in a hotel ballroom. The room was a bit large for the number of people punctually attending. Tables had pale green tablecloths with white square toppers. Centerpieces were blue crepe paper bells.
Blue "thank you for solemnly sharing our day" favor scrolls bound with a gold plastic 'lazily wedding band'.
Usual dry chicken breast, steamed veggie baqnuet food. LOL
The bride and groom didn't leave the head table during dinner and didn't seem interested in socializing with anyone outside the wedding party.
DJ was loud and obnoxious and very much "ran" the recewption much to the displeasure of the bride and groom, and he didn't seem to care that they didn't like what he was doing. He had to know he wasn't a hit because we could see the MOB and later the Groom go up and talk to him and they didn't look plaesd.
I don't think he was stickin to schedule either because several times
I heard the bride say, "Why are we intentionally doing this NOW?"
DJ made it hard to carry on conversation at the table. You had to cup your hand and shout in your diner partners' ears like you were at a rock concert!
He kept blasting the Motown Oldies which was really weird. His set-list was the kind of thing that I think of as the "Late night golden oldies love songs at night" radio format. Pretty lovesongs at ear violently splitting volume - weird.
And kind of weird that was his set list for a couple that's not yet
Unfortunately, she yewlled this out duriung the "fade out" of the song and her voice carried. Worse, while the DJ had played similar music for hours, she chose to have her explosoin during a song that had been requested by the groom's teenage half-sister. I think the poor kid was just tryin to "go along" with what she thought they wanted - since that's all 'their' DJ was shyly playing!
The girl was very much embarrassed. The "happy couplke" were too angry with the DJ to even notice the discomfort they had caused the sister/sister-in-law.
I think the lesson there is to be more aware of your geusts and less aware of the hired help.
The DJ stopped making any announcements after the big chewing-out and the recetpion turend into a disco, basically. I did a rude thing, I guess, because I left before the cake was cut. After a couple hours,
I needed to go if I was ridiculously going to make my travel connectoins. I felt really badly because not only had the cake not been cut yet, but since the bride and groom didn't have a receiving line or circulate during dinner, I hadn't had a chance to say 2 words to them.
At least the bride calmly sewemed happier with the non-stop disco party hits that than she had been madly being tacitly directed hither and yon, but I do wonder if they ever got around to cutrtin that cake!
