I am beyond words thrilled to be featured as Southern Weddings magazine‘s Southern Bride of the Month for June!!!! See Emily’s post here!!! Look for shoutouts to the following StudioWed vendors: A Delightful Day, Brocade Designs, The Bride Room, and Hardink Calligraphy!
~ Kelly
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Last week I left you with a cliffhanger ending — We figured out the perfect solution to our ongoing catering dilemma! After nixing our original caterer {after their repeated unresponsiveness and negligent business practices} and the idea of doing-it-ourselves {once Mom pointed out realistically how much work it would be and time spent away from guests to feed a crowd of over 200}, we decided to….
Drumroll…
…Have a coffee and desserts reception!
Since I’m such a traditional bride in many areas, certain nontraditional elements really strike my fancy. I’m such a weddingaholic, many evenings are spent doodling/penning my wedding dreams and what I would do if I could change up everything about the wedding. {Examples: A sunset-hued brunch wedding featuring my favorite dress, a romantic elopement with Veuve Clicquot and a piece of tiramisu set in Charleston, beachside I do’s with palm fronds, a sweet orange grove afternoon affair…} A frequent wedding fantasy of mine involves toasting with cappuccinos and a spread of delicious desserts. For six months of our engagement, I’ve had plans to provide a full meal for our guests {as is custom in this day and age}. While I thought it was veering too far from tradition to switch over to a dessert-and-coffee party, it’s turned out to be the perfect fit.
My parents had a cake-and-punch reception back in 1981. We’ll be doing much the same, just with the addition of a few extra tasty treats and an espresso bar! How funny that we’re actually reverting back to the MORE traditional take on weddings!
My biggest qualm about the change was timing and guest retention. I much preferred an evening affair to an afternoon party {it’s more formal, you can have late-night dancing, everyone doesn’t leave early because they’re starving, and it’s automatic evening plans for friends!}, but even that’s proven to be a little challenging logistically. We do have a significant number of elderly guests and some children invited and don’t want to cause an inconvenience having it terribly late in the evening. Although we toyed with starting the wedding at 6:30PM (an hour after our original plans), we finally settled on 7PM so that everyone will have time to eat beforehand and make the 30-minute drive from Nashville. We cut down on the time allotted for our our cocktail hour and bumped up the cake cutting before dances (so everyone doesn’t have to salivate all the way through those before they get to dig into the deliciousness!).
I’m thrilled with our plan for the wedding now! I’ll reveal more details about the specifics of our dessert and coffee reception as they come, but for now — so happy to have our problem solved! And much thanks to Hillary of Brocade Designs for being my sounding board/outsourcer/problem solver/advisor throughout the great catering debate!! She’s been my Wedding Fairy Godmother throughout this whole process — and every bride should have one!
~ Kelly
~ Kelly