Focusing on Planning the Wedding Reception

When we set forth to plan a wedding reception the first question we must ask ourselves is, "What are we trying to achieve?"

It's easy to think that the answer is obvious, but in my discussions with brides over the years (hundreds, if not thousands by now) I have discovered that it really isn't. Brides tend to have one of several concepts in their mind based on their own upbringing and / or dreams. We might term these concepts as 1) Casual, 2) Themed, and 3) Elegant

• Casual: This is the wedding party that really doesn't care about how the celebration looks - as long as they have some time to celebrate with those who mean the most to them. I once met a young woman who told me that her ideal wedding celebration would be in a park with her reception centered around a barbecue that would end with her new husband and her slipping into their backpacks and hiking into the mountains for their honeymoon.
• Themed: A themed wedding takes a much loved idea and builds a decor around it taking care to ask how every element contributes to the development of the theme. This is the approach that chooses it's theme before the venue is chosen so that the venue can be chosen that will further the theme. After all, how much success can one have building a surf theme wedding in a crystal ballroom or an apple orchard?
• Elegant: The focus in an elegant wedding reception is to honor the value of a great marriage in the same way we honor a visiting dignitary by throwing a formal dinner for them in the dining establishment of the highest repute. This is not to say that the other formats devalue marriage (though we all know that can happen as well), just that if any meaning is given to an elegant style wedding reception this is usually the thinking behind it.
  
  

Really, in every type of wedding reception, those planning it need to do some careful planning. For example, would a casual wedding fit better in an immaculately tended English garden or ??? Likewise, what elements do you really need for your wedding? If your celebration is in the English garden mentioned above, how much do you really need to spend on your bridal flowers? If your caterer provides a ice sculpture that could serve as the design focal point for your wedding and an assortment of high end deserts do you really need to wedding cake? Couldn't you spend the money more effectively somewhere else?

For an elegant wedding, perhaps you choose to spend your money on a classical string quartet instead of the cheesy disc jockey playing the hits from the seventies and eighties all over again.

Want the string quartet but can't afford a formal dinner and the live musicians? Treat the reception more like the grand opening of an art gallery with high quality hors d’oeuvres and maybe the money you save on catering will allow you to have !

By continually asking ourselves the question what are we trying to achieve as we plan our wedding reception, we give ourselves a better chance at creating the wedding celebration that we have always been dreaming about.