Tell me about your wedding!

[ByeByeButterfly]

I'm getting married in August and just being a bit nosy!

Answer as few/as many of these questions you feel comfortable with as I'm aware some might worry about being outed.

1. What time of the year did you have your wedding?
   
2. What type of flowers did you have?
   
3. What did you do for your hen/stag do's?
   
4. What was your cake like?
   
5. What was your colour theme or general theme of wedding?
   
6. How many people attended?
   
7. How many bridesmaids/best men/flower girls etc did you have?
   
8. What type of venue did you have your wedding at (church, hotel, barn etc)?
   
9. What form of entertainment did you have if any?
   
10. What did you do about food/drink - buffet, 3 course meal, free bar, 1 bottle of wine per guest etc)?
    
11. Where did you go on your honeymoon and how long for?
    
12. Were children invited to your wedding?
    
13. Were you a bit of a bridezilla or was there any drama coming up to your wedding (don't tell me what it is don't worry, just curious)?
    
14. What was the best thing about your wedding day other than of course marrying the person that you love?
    
15. What do you think makes a good/bad wedding?
    
    
    I'm not a researcher by the way, just a really nosy MNetter!

[Upatree]

1. What time of the year did you have your wedding?
   I'm getting married in October 2015. Soon to be DH is a teacher, so we needed to do it in school holidays if we wanted to take our honeymoon at the same time. We were initially looking at August 2015, but we were then invited to numerous other weddings of close friends that month, so we moved it back to autumn. It's our favourite time of the year so it works out well for us.
   
   
2. What type of flowers did you have?
   Unsure yet. Possibly dried flowers, which work out less expensive and I think would go well in autumn.
   
   
3. What did you do for your hen/stag do's?
   I'm going to Belfast for 3 nights with 6 friends and staying in apartment. We plan to do the Game of Thrones tour, visit the castle and have some lovely meals out. OH hasn't decided yet - his best man lives in Spain so he may go there, or they may have something local so more stags can attend.
   
   
4. What was your cake like?
   I don't have a sweet tooth at all and OH & I both love cheese, so we were thinking of having a 4-tiered cheese wedding cake, decorated with fruit. We've already sampled rather a lot of cheeses and have worked out that if we buy the rounds and decorate it ourselves it will work out approx. 1/4 the price of buying one ready made.
   
   
5. What was your colour theme or general theme of wedding?
   Woodland theme, as the venue is in Sherwood Forest. Green will be the predominant colour (olive green for the bridesmaids) with other autumnal hues.
   
   
6. How many people attended?
   Our package for the day is for 50 people. We can have up to 70 if we pay extra for them, but we want to keep the costs down. We'll probably invite another 30 - 40 to the evening do, but we haven't finalised the guest list yet.
   
   
7. How many bridesmaids/best men/flower girls etc did you have?
   3 bridesmaids (no maid of honour, I couldn't bring myself to choose between my friends) 1 best man, 2 ushers, no flower girls or page boys.
   
   
8. What type of venue did you have your wedding at (church, hotel, barn etc)?
   Eco centre surrounded by woodland.
   
   
9. What form of entertainment did you have if any?
   Neither of us are fans of cheesy discos, so opted out of having the in-house DJ. Instead several of our friends who are DJs will do a set each. We've made a list of all our favourite songs that we want playing and those that we most definitely do not!
   
   
10. What did you do about food/drink - buffet, 3 course meal, free bar, 1 bottle of wine per guest etc)?
    Our package included canapes for directly after the ceremony, a 3 course meal for 50 guests, half a bottle of wine each, champagne for the toast and an evening buffet.
    
    
11. Where did you go on your honeymoon and how long for?
    We hope to go to California for 10 days and split our time between San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.
    
    
12. Were children invited to your wedding?
    There will be 4 under 4's and two boys, aged 12 and 14. Initially we considered not inviting children as we didn't want them crying through the vows, but OH's Dsis will have a 4 month old baby by October and OH's Dbro has a toddler and we felt it would inconvenience them hugely if their DC weren't able to come. This is turn made us think that our friends may not consider it fair if other DC were invited but not theirs, so we invited all children (only 6 in total though, as most of our friends don't have DC)
    
    
13. Were you a bit of a bridezilla or was there any drama coming up to your wedding (don't tell me what it is don't worry, just curious)?
    Not so far, no. I am somewhat of a panicker and a perfectionist so never say never, but I also used to work in event management, so I'm pretty organised and have planned a considerable proportion of the wedding already, because I don't want to be flapping at the last minute.
    
    
14. What was the best thing about your wedding day other than of course marrying the person that you love?
    N/A
    
    
15. What do you think makes a good/bad wedding?
    
    Good:
    A ceremony that reflects the couple. For example, I don't understand why people who don't usually attend church or have any deep belief choose to marry in church. It's struck me before how unpersonal these weddings are - the hymns, readings, formality, etc. The churches are often freezing cold too!
    Enough to eat, served at the right time. I remember one wedding where the ceremony was at 11am and the wedding breakfast was at 5pm with no food offered during those entire six hours. I thought "fair enough, I know they haven't got much money," but then, no more than an hour after the wedding breakfast finished, an enormous buffet was served up which no one ate because they were still full after dinner.
    
    Bad:
    Kids bawling throughout the wedding vows and parents making no attempt to quieten them / take them out of the room.
    An out of the way venue, with no transport laid on. Not all of us have cars!
    Just my personal preference, but I don't feel comfortable in overly "formal" situations. None of my friends are the formal type either, so the last thing I'd do is plan an overly formal traditional wedding where they would feel wholly uncomfortable.
    The bride and/or groom being utterly wasted. I went to a horrendous wedding a few years ago where the bride (who I had never met before) dragged me outside and proceeded to slur that the groom (my friend) was a loser because her family had contributed so much to the cost of the wedding compared to him, ditto with the deposit for their house, and she didn't respect him anymore. I was stood there thinking: Shouldn't you have considered this BEFORE exchanging vows??!