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Reader Buzz: The Second Time Around
October 12th, 2007 @ 5:59 pm by Reader Buzz
Mrs. Bee here.
Earlier this year I mentioned how I wanted to renew our vows on our 5 year anniversary. I don’t think the 5 year renewal will happen, but hopefully we can aim for the 10 year. 
I often think about the type of wedding we’d have if we could do it again. We had a classic Manhattan loft wedding, and it was beautiful and fun and great. But an outdoor, much more casual, even rustic wedding is better suited to both our personalities. I’d love to do something like a big ol’ barbecue.
What type of wedding are you having, and if you could do it again (even if it’s an imaginary wedding), how would you do it differently?
15 Responses to “Reader Buzz: The Second Time Around”
Thanks for bringing this up. We wanted an outdoor mountain feel with a picnic reception, but ended up going with an elegant barn BBQ complete with fiddle tunes, roses, and mason jars alongside champagne glasses giving it a rustic with classic vibe.
We loved the idea of getting married by the ocean, in Hawaii, in Vegas, at Disneyland, so we decided that if we wanted to renew in 10 years we could just pick one of the fun things that we didn’t get to do the first time around. It’s a great way to say, hey…I’m still in love with you after all these years and I want everyone to know how happy you’ve made me.
The thing I wonder is…does this seem like something cool and fun for me and my guy or will people see it as an attempt to be in the spotlight?
Anyone here have a renewal yet?
We’re doing an outdoor garden wedding and a country club reception. The country club location was sort of incidental - we booked the reception there because their garden was so perfect for the ceremony.
I don’t know if I like the idea of a vow renewal or not, but I can say that I realized after picking our wedding date that most of my favourite flowers are out of season. So if we did it again, I’d do it in May so I could base the whole thing around parrot tulips and peonies!
I love Jolie Fisher’s vow renewal. It seemed to have sooo much feeling! We’re having a big wedding with 150 guests. I would have loved to have had a Destination Wedding with closest friends and family. I don’t know if guests would be willing to do that though. Earlier this week, I told FI that I’d want our kids to have DWs.
No, I don’t think it’s another attempt at the spotlight at all…
I mean people will get free food and drinks agan most likely! So it’s a win win for them!
It’s a great oppurtunity to do things you may have thought were too causal for the first wedding and to have more fun with it.
I think people would think its great. Especially after 5-10yrs most circle of friends have stopped having the weddings and are mostly focused on baby showers.
I think it’s fun to mix it back up again!
I wouldn’t do a vow renewal with all the hooplah, fancy gown, ceremony etc. I don’t see our wedding/marriage as something that expires so the idea of doing a fancy vow renewal seems really random. I’d love to throw fun anniversary parties though, but one time in a veil and vows will be enough for me 
I didn’t even think of a white dress or veil or anything like that actually!
I don’t know what my friend is wearing to her Vegas renewal yet but probably something silly and maybe even slightly trashy too!
I just though of this, what about a Mafia Wedding themed renewal…that would be cute too I think…themed renewals….
Just another excuse for a party!
I mean it really is a celebration of an anniversary too! Just a slightly bigger one that you share with your friends!
Good point, karebearlbc.
Oh, and I found some other responses from a past Wedding Bee post:
http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/02/06/reader-buzz-renewing-your-vows/
We’re doing a winery, we figured the setting would “decorate” itself, saving us a lot of money on florals, draping, etc. but if money were a little less tight it would be in a museum/gallery!
We will have a wedding in thailand in traditional thai garb but it will be a “vow renewal” of sorts…and probably not for 3 years or so
We’re doing a tiny, casual destination wedding on a beach. Sometimes I wonder if we should have done something a little more fancy, but this is very ‘us’ and there is very little to stress over.
I had a green wedding- yeah trees, we gave compact florescent lightbulbs as a favor (with a little poem about light and love and we did a money dance with all proceeds going to an environmental cause. I’d do it exactly the same with 1 exception: the flowers. I hate to say it because I love getting flowers, but it seemed like a waste for what we spent. Amazingly, linens did a lot to bring the room alive, plus they are reused. Good question!
Oh, and one more thing….since I didn’t exactly answer the question…I would still do it with all the people I love around, the people really made the day.
I think that if I could start over again with planning this one, I would have a destination wedding in Napa or Sonoma with a small group of family and friends. Have the ceremony in the vineyard then do a big gourmet dinner and wine tasting. Our families are quite large and they all live in Chicago, so doing anything like that definitely would have been a challenge!
To renew my vows I could see a small private ceremony and then a big party afterwards- more of an anniversary party, I guess. I would probably do it around 25 or 50 years. Maybe then I could head out west…
This is a very sensitive question for me. There’s so many things that went wrong with our wedding. And there’s so many things I wish I had done differently. But at the end, I still have the best husband and I’m glad that I have him by my side forever.
If I could do it again, I would have a simple beach side wedding with just the people who means the most to us.
I’d wear a short dress like Mrs. Onion’s, go barefoot, a bouquet of wild flowers, and have a private ceremony in a field in Southern Sicily.
Mrs Snow Pea, you read my mind. I wanted to be a barefoot bride too, but it didn’t work out being on a concrete slab…really not as romantic as a field or mountaintop setting.
