Would you enjoy this wedding?

[toastand]

DP & I have decided to get married and we’ve spent the past week pricing up different days. DP is keen on a larger wedding, ceremony & reception all weekend type do. Manor House/Barn type thing. I was happy to marry just us and the kids in a nice registry office. I’d rather not get into debt and marry sooner.

3:30pm - Ceremony in London town hall
4:00pm - Photos & confetti throw
4:30pm - Chilled Prosecco & Beers on hired out bus.
5:00pm - Arrive at reception, welcome drinks and canapés. Singer or saxophonist.
6:00pm - 3 course sit down meal, plenty of wine & beer.
8:00pm - DJ
9:00ish: Evening Food
12:00am: Home

The reception is a lovely restaurant, exclusive hire, meal upstairs then into basement for party. We’d be spending at least 6 thousand on catering & venue, I’m wincing at this but it’s one of the cheaper options I’ve found.

All rough timings for now but would you attend this? My parents, siblings and nieces/nephews alone is 22. Both mine and DP’s family and friends are in London, he has a few family members who’d be travelling from Wales & up North.

Weve managed to compromise on about 60 guests for the entire day. I’m of course doing most the leg work in researching and enquiring, and to be honest I’m not sure he understood what weddings cost until I sat him down today and ran through the quotes.

Does this sound okay or do I need to go back to the drawing board?

I would have supper at 10 as by the time you have dinner, speeches and cake cutting it will be too close.
Don't arrange accommodation for anyone else as pp said except parents grandparents but including information about nearby accommodation is helpful.
Make sure everyone gets home safe after all that drinking.
It sounds a lovely day, good luck.

I'd attend it if it was a relationship where I feel I should attend whether I liked your wedding set up or not. My thoughts though:
Ceremony - location doesn't bother me. The important part is the getting married and saying your vows.
Photos and confetti - Photos fine, confetti though??? Why? It makes a mess and is a fertility ritual. You already have kids. I didn't know people still did that.
4.30 drinks - I don't drink and would want alcohol free options, even if just apple juice or water. I'd smile nicely and talk to people during this time.
Reception - social chat till sit down meal, so would do that and enjoy the meal. Don't care about plenty of wine and beer. Would like simple alcohol free options.
DJ - this might be where I leave or take a break if it's loud. Is there a nice outdoor area I can chat with fellow escapees in? I think plenty of people would enjoy this part, just a few of us wouldn't.
Not sure when I'd go home, but I'd be sure to stay for a bit after the meal.

Your wedding plans sound great. To keep costs down, I wouldn't have a free bar. The majority of weddings I've been to, apart from drinks on arrival and with the meal, you subsequently buy your own drinks. I think it's only necessary to put some money behind the bar, if some of the guests are just coming for the evening only. Although I have been to many evening receptions where there has been no welcome drinks. So really not expected.

I’d love it

I think it sounds amazing. I am going to show my Dchild this thread as it might fit the bill for their wedding! 😊

Very similar to ours, which was extremely fun. The great thing about London weddings is most of the guests can just get a taxi or night bus home, and family from out of town have loads of accommodation options at a variety of price points.

We did tins of beer, g&t and softies on the bus - the ushers had a big ice bucket and handed them out as people got on. Much easier and less spillage risk than prosecco.

If you want to cut costs, ditch the singer / saxophonist as it may kill conversation. We did a custom playlist (chilled, jazzy, vaguely 1960s themed) for this part of our evening.

You need a bagpiper instead 😉

We got married at Marylebone Town Hall and then hired a vintage bus afterwards - it was absolutely brilliant. We stopped off for a glass of champagne and photos in a park nearby and then did the sights before ending up at our reception venue. Everyone loved the bus, especially being able to stop off and take photos. Best wishes with it - I did it and it still gets talked about in a positive way by our family and friends over 20 years later!

be careful about taking a too long route to kill time. You could easily get stuck in traffic and throw the whole schedule off . Might be better to prioritise getting close to the venue and then gong round the block a couple times.

I think you've nailed it! People have time to have lunch beforehand, canapés as afternoon snack, and early dinner at 6 (can you tell I hate getting hungry at a wedding). And not long waiting around for photos. Honestly sounds great. Congratulations and best wishes to you both!

3pm wedding starts are such a dream! I don't miss the 90s weddings that started at 10am and were dragged out the entire day so everyone felt bloated and shattered before the evening DJ even arrived.
I went to a wedding a few years ago with a saxophonist and she was wonderful! Definitely a lovely addition.
As said above I'd maybe think about how much food there is. Perhaps it's not the same for every wedding but the ones I've been to where there's a big meal late on usually means no ones ever that hungry when the buffet comes out, even if people just come to the evening party, they've usually eaten at home before arriving and there's often so much food going to waste. Not that you shouldn't do it if that's what you want but I always think a grazing table or a smaller buffet works much better. By 9pm most people are fairly tipsy and eatings no longer on the radar.

We did this almost exactly with 40 people for under 10k all in inc dress and suit etc 5 years ago.
Our wedding was earlier i think... 1 or 2 maybe? We left about 10.30/ 11 and everyone else carried on

you could def drop the pre dinner canapes at eat at 5.30/5.45 then keep evening food more modest... there will be cake as well
Id say Keep the evening food but don't have tonnes maybe 3-4 pp we did slightly bigger 2-3 bite snack type things ( and did4-5 pp it was too much tbh!)

It was amazing I have no regrets- we did 30mins of photos there was no 3 hr photo shoot session which meant we got time with guests. It was relaxed and smaller nos meant we got to enjoy talking to people.

Dh strongly wanted 100-120 people at Hatfield house. the costs were wild...it initially was about 20-25k but once you factored everything in was more like £50/60k !!!!(evening bacon rolls were £16.50 pp ex. Vat for example... and they wanted 400 ex vat to turn on overhead Fairy lights... this misery bastardrey is what tipped me over the edge!!!!

We were planning at v v early covid stages and so I was able to push through "my wedding". We did that and bought a new kitchen / landscaped the garden for less the than the big wedding. Dh admits now i was right!

Several friends married within 18m of ours and it was considered a "favourite" wedding by many...

Tbh I think this is absolutely perfect. I am
not much use as I don’t have any helpful advice, just that I would love to attend a wedding like this and would have a great time!

Going against the grain apparently, it seems like quite a tacky event all up. Registry office, drinks on a bus and a saxophone? Your DP has the right idea of it imo.

😅😅😅😅

There's always one.

Sounds great! I would love to be a guest

It sounds great! Aside from the evening food, the only other comment I’d make is that with a quick round of reportage photos is that someone might get missed from your guests. I’d hate to miss anyone.

I agree 100% with @novocaine4thesoul

I think it sounds great and I’d love it . But the main thing is whether you love it!

For those out of town - I think people will be happy travelling down in the morning, quick lunch, checkin to hotel and change, get to venue is all very do-able.

I think the plan is great but if you had canapés and a full meal you don’t need evening food - unless you just mean cutting the a wedding cake?

(Usually the evening food has been at about 11pm at weddings I’ve gone to, and that’s been when the wedding meal has been some weird time like 4pm or 5pm)

I wouldn’t worry about people standing round bored during photos, it’s normal

I imagine some folk won’t want to travel home at midnight - when you send invites provide address details of the hotels if they want to stay. Most people will happily pay for a night in a hotel rather than a taxi late at night.

I think you’re confusing Marylebone town hall and a vintage London bus with Lewisham registry office and a school bus

Sounds fantastic.

I definitely think the people travelling down should be offered a hotel for two nights, the night before the wedding and the night of the wedding.

I like the later start.

Sounds great I’d definitely go

Travelling down morning of for a 3:30 wedding is fine.

would make the evening food a little late, maybe like 10:30. wouldn’t do too much her but a little something sounds nice.

I don’t think drinks on bus and then again on arrival is too much. I can’t imagine people can drink too much on a bus - if you skip one skip the bus drinks. Presumably they just get a small amount when they board.