Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Wed-cap: The end of the night Part 1

In THIS post I talked about our sparkler exit out of the reception. Here are a few pics to refresh your memory



What I failed to mention in that post was that we didn't actually leave right after our sparkler exit. In fact Kristian and I were two of the last to leave that night. When it came to our exit we cheated a bit. We saw some of the older guests and those who had a long drive ahead of them starting to leave around 10:15 or so and not wanting to have a lot of people miss the sparkler send off we decided to go ahead and do it early. More people were able to enjoy the sparklers and we were able to get the cute pictures.

After we were done with our "exit" we told the group to feel free to go back inside and continue to dance and drink for a while which many of them did. Over the next 30 minutes more people slowly started to file out and we had plenty of time to say our goodbyes to all the guests rather than just rushing out and into a waiting car. This gave us the best of both worlds...a fun "exit" and also the opportunity to say goodbye to our guests.

At the end we were left with our parents, my brother, a few groomsmen who were handling taking home the leftover booze and food and our 3 Day of Coordinators who were helping the caterers with clean up. We had to help figure out who was taking what home.

Tip- decide in advance who will be taking home all the leftover decor items like flowers, candles, favors, alcohol (if you provided it). It makes things much easier at the end of the night. Also, make sure there is enough room in those peoples cars for these items. We had to break up the big ceremony arrangement into smaller sets because nobody had room in their car for the large piece as a whole.

Even though we had a limo bring both the guys and girls to the venue before the wedding we chose not to spend the money to reserve the limo for 8 hours to be there to take us home. It just didn't make sense. Most of our wedding party was able to ride home with their date/spouse who had arrived separate or via taxi if they were drunk. And since the hotel we were staying was only 5 miles away it didn't seem necessary to have some fancy ride.

Instead Kristian and I actually caught a ride with my older brother after the wedding. We, along with my mom and her BFF piled into my brother's not exactly large BMW. It was so cramped with the 6 of us plus all our shit that I had to sit on Kristian's lap...not that I minded that part :) It was a cheap and easy transportation option.

The story of the rest of our night (the PG version) is to be continued....

**Did/Will you leave before your guests and what is your mode of transportation?

10 comments:

Marian said...

I absolutely love those pictures!!!

We are going the same way as you...only using a party bus for the ceremony and get to the reception. However, since most of our guests are from out-of-town, we'll be providing school buses from the hotel to the reception...which we'll just hop on for a ride back. Its the more budget friendly option instead of keeping the party bus for the entire night

Nicole-Lynn said...

Cute picturs! :) I love your sparkler exit! I wish we could have one but our venue wont allow it. I am thinking of doing the metallic streamers.. we'll see! :)

We'll most likely get a limo for me and the girls on the way there, and have it waiting for my fiance and I as we leave the wedding. The guys will find their own way of getting to the ceremony and since our ceremony and reception is at the same place they will have their cars there already.

Heather said...

I love your sparkler exit, plus your idea about how to include it but still continue the dancing and fun afterward. We were also the last to leave our reception, along with our families and wedding party, who drove us to our hotel in the van we'd rented.

Mrs T said...

Great photos. Love them so much. Glad that everyone got to enjoy the sparklers too - what a great idea to do it early.

LindseyEveryday said...

These pictures are gorgeous! I just picked out the venue yesterday for our wedding! :) I hope my pics turn out as well as yours!

bananas. said...

faking for the sake of a picture...LOVE IT! i would totally do the same. haha.

btw thank you for the kind words. my grandma didn't even make 80 so i'm happy dave's grandma was able to live a long life.

have a good day sweetie! xoxo.

Born to be Mrs. Beever said...

That is such a great idea. I wish we would have done that as well...had our send off and then gone back in. As you know, we were the very last ones to leave as well. So I didn't plan any type of send off and we also had our own cars there and just followed each other to our hotel 5 minutes away :) I love your cute sparkler pics and wish we had something like that...oh well.

Krysten @ Why Girls Are Weird said...

I LOVE those pics, sparklers are such a cute idea and a fun way to end the night.

Llama said...

that is such an awesome idea! i might "fake" and exit too just to have that!! good advice on dividing all the goodies beforehand...i see the problem at EVERY wedding i attend!!

princessapr said...

We were the last to leave as well. We did our photo exit first actually, but we only did a quick wave for the camera. Later, we found a ride for all gifts, decorations, and bridal party (we all took a limo from the church to the reception). We neglected to find rides for ourselves so we sat on the floor of a minivan and, if I remember correctly, I was on my mom's lap. :)

We did delegate who transferred stuff from the church to the reception though. Asking for help ahead of time makes things go so smoothly.