Wedding Blog
If I could turn back time and change some of our (non)vendor decisions, would I? It depends. Decisions as they relate to the ceremony? NO WAY! It was perfect. It was easy and carefree. The reception? Well, that’s another story.
Before I start, I want to say that I LOVE the Lake Union Café. Dann and Victoria are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. The staff? More of the same. The food? Can you say NOM NOM NOM? People actually sought me out during the reception to tell me it was the best wedding meal they had ever had. If Dann had not been there to keep the party moving, the reception would not have happened, period. That said, there are a few details I’d consider changing about our venue and reception.
First, I would have gone for the Friday night wedding, or actually tried to wait list us for a Saturday or Sunday night wedding. The space was lovely in the day, but at night, with the candles and view of the lake? Stunning. Plus, it would have been cooler. It was a little warm in there because of the heat wave that week.
Second, I would have hired a DJ. An iPod during the daytime equaled very little dancing.
People loved the music during lunch and drinks, but no one was really motivated to dance in the middle of the day when it was hot. Very little dancing wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the dance floor weren’t in the middle of the reception space. When no one was dancing, it looked kind of sad. Our friend Sean, who has been in about 20 weddings (no joke), says that same thing of all the daytime weddings he attends - there is very little dancing. So, if we had another daytime wedding at Lake Union Café, I’d hire a DJ or a band.
Third, and this get back to the dancing, I’d hire a babysitter. Here’s my thinking, and how it relates to the dancing. We had A LOT of kids at the wedding under 10. Having a wedding without the kids in our families would literally result in their parents not coming to the wedding. I don’t think a kid-less wedding has ever been done in my family, and I don’t think it will ever happen in the future. So, what happens when parents let their kids run around during a wedding, and there is an empty dance floor? You guessed it: instant playground. The kids took over that dance floor. Sometimes they danced, but they mostly ran around and played tag. Would you want to dance while little kids played tag around you? I wished parents would have kept kids at their tables, but really, we should have planned for a little more than something to color. We should have hired a few people to take over the entry room and turn it into a little kid activity heaven, maybe with board games for the older kids and some sort of activity (like cookie decorating) for the younger ones.
Lastly, I would have stuck to the plan. We decided against me changing into a sari for the Father-Daughter dance because we never had time to fit the top that goes under it. Just looking at it, we could tell that it would have been huge. We never practiced putting on the sari, either. At the last minute, Mama Joey and MOH Joey voted against it. I agreed, but now think I should have at least tried it on. Oh well, what are you going to do?
Did you plan to do something on your wedding day that you ended up skipping due to time constraints or poor planning? Do you regret it?
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Share this post: Love in Grey and Yellow : If I Could Turn Back Time - Part 2
Mrs. Joey…I can’t help but feel sad every time I read your posts! You were so excited and enthusiastic about your wedding but it sounds like you didn’t have a good time at your wedding. Did you?
I had a lot of the same kind of feelings after my wedding–couldn’t stop thinking about the little things that hadn’t gone exactly right. Like for a year afterwards I would have dreams about re-doing the wedding! Even though it was perfectly nice and nothing had really gone wrong! My only advice is to try to *force* yourself to focus on all the great and beautiful and wonderful things. Once the initial rush of post-wedding stuff is past, your regrets will fade, I promise.
Joey, I can relate. I got married the weekend after you and there were definitely things that didn’t go according to plan. Some things could have been prevented and some couldn’t. Did we end up married at the end of the day? Yep. Was it all puppy dogs and rainbows? No, it was stressful. But once the ceremony started I calmed down some. And the reception was a party. But regrets? Like they say, I have a few as well.
i had some regrets and it felt good to vent them out, but I’m trying really hard to move past them and forget only the good things. Mrs Penguin started a thread about this. It’s hard to forget the things that didn’t work out!
I’ve found the same thing w/ daytime weddings. My sister just had one, and it was the same thing (and they did have DJ who was probably great, people just weren’t motivated).
I’ve seen the kid thing, too. A babysitter is a good idea when there are lots of kids, although I’ve never seen it done. To be honest, though, I’ve seen it at weddings were there was dancing, and it’s almost worse because you have little ones bumping into people who are clearly annoyed, drunk people on the dance floor knocking over kids, etc.
We had a small wedding, and I was worried about people not wanting to dance, so we had a jazz band during dinner and cocktails, and then karaoke afterwards. (The karaoke, while it sounds odd, was a HUGE hit and definitely kept the party going.)
@Miss Burgundy: Oh no. This isn’t suppose to be a post where I was super upset about all the decisions I made, it’s suppose to be one where other brides are given a few tips via my mishaps (if you will). I wish I had thought about the dancing or the kids. They just never occured to me.
i’ve been to a few daytime weddings and two of them didn’t have much dancing because the couples weren’t that into dancing and one took the dancefloor for their dances.
but the other weddings? packed. but the bride and groom were also on the dancefloor so i think that’s why it was so packed.
it just depends.
and thanks for getting cher stuck in my head joey. LOL
I can’t get Cher’s “if I could turn back time” song out of my head… if that was what you were going for when you titled these posts– you hit the nail on the head!
Just trying to be lighthearted– i do appreciate you diving into these issues, i’ll think twice about kids activities (Miss FroYo has lots of good ideas) and time of day now!
@tea: We tried dancing (me more than him) but could never get more than 3 or 4 people to dance except for 2 songs.
And, um, you’re welcome. I was wondering when someone would notice the title 
I don’t know that a DJ helps with an afternoon wedding and dancing. I think most people just aren’t ready to let loose like that until after the sun goes down. However, I also don’t think you have to have dancing to have a fun time at a wedding - hopefully everyone enjoyed having some great visiting time!
@La: I had the very same experience. It helped when I finally got my pictures from the photographer and saw the ridiculous grin on my face in all the pictures. It helped remind me what a good time I had despite all the little things that didn’t quite work out.
Mrs. Joey. First off, congratulations!!! I too go married last month and have been looking back and contemplating things I would change or wish I could do over. To be honest, it’s bumming me out a bit. Maybe some PWB. But we haven’t received our pro photos yet, so that might help because the day went so fast I can’t remember everything and/or forgot to look (or didn’t have time) at some of the details. I think the biggest thing I would change if I could would have been a friend I asked to be in my wedding party which ended up affecting the whole weekend and the getting ready part of the day. She did next to nothing to make the day special or even easy, didn’t stay at our hotel with the rest of the wedding party, ate up most of the time with our hair stylist and was more worried about some zit on her back than anything to do with, including helping get me in my dress. Which wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I had a large wedding party but it was just 2 BM and my 13 year MOH. Oy vey! Sorry to rant.
But I completely understand the regret factor.
Congratulations on the wedding, I can’t wait for recaps. I just got married last month too and looking back I have some regrets, but in some ways it’s hard for me to remember so many things without all the photos yet. The day flew by. I hope you had a good time!
Your post is exactly why we’re not really having dancing at our wedding. I knew the only way we’d fill a dance floor at any wedding with our families is with lots of booze, and since our wedding is in the afternoon, we’re not having a ton of it. So we’re having the ipod as background music, mostly.
Mrs. Joey, I just mean your tone in general sounds kind of disappointed…
@Miss Burgundy: Hmm. Of course I’m disappointed that I didn’t plan enough but at this point you can’t really do anything but put it out there and hope someone else avoids those few regrets. I’m not sure how to make the things I’d change sound really upbeat.
@mkendrick: Don’t let it bum you out. At the end of the day you two still got married, and that’s the most important thing right?
@mcnetn3: nope, you’re definitely not the only one!
@Mrs. Joey: haha, now if i could get the image of those rose tattoos on her bottom out of my head, that would be perfect!
or maybe i can just get the picture stuck in someone else’s head. misery sure does love company!
I have to say I was so pleased with 99.9% of the wedding related decisions that we made. The one thing that sticks out in my mind (5 days later) is our favors. Due to some non-rsvp’ers, our favor table ended up in a corner. Some people didn’t know it was our favor. And I have 9 cases of beer in my living room today to provide it. I should have had the DJ make an announcment. Or, I should have tied it into our table-scape, or just reminded people as they said goodbye to me. If that’s my worst regret, I guess it was a pretty successful day, right?
@Mrs. Joey: Don’t worry about how you sound, just be! Thanks for your honest posts. I can’t wait to see your recaps: dress & yellow shoes!
I think every bride has some regrets, especially when you spend a good chunk of a year or so planning for your big day and reading blogs, etc where it seems like everyone else’s weddings are so dang flawless. I’m so super glad you are honest, Joey. Thank you for keepin it real. Although I loved my wedding day, there are some things I would have changed (like hiring a DOC, not having my mom/stepdad have to do so much work to set up the reception… I could go on). Looking forward to more recaps!
Hey, Mrs. J!
We were lucky to have people dancing during our wedding, but I think that has a lot do with me and my friends. Ahem…people of color like their dancing…what can I say? It doesn’t matter if it’s day or night. I will say that almost all of Mr. Swan’s friends and their wives did NOT dance. BUT I do think that this may have been the case whether we had a day or night wedding. I was on the dancefloor pretty much the whole time. There was no way I was NOT going to dance (especially after dropping loot on a DJ).
I’m excited to hear about the things you did like about the wedding, and I am sure that there were many.
I hope people dance at our wedding, but sometimes it’s hard to make happen.
Honestly I don’t think that hiring a DJ or band would have helped get people to dance more, not at a daytime wedding. I think it’s just the nature of daytime weddings and that would have made it seem forced, so I think you did the right thing! It would have been sad if you’d hired a DJ or band to get people up and dancing, and they still didn’t, you know?
Miss Joey, these posts are super helpful, thanks for sharing all of your lessons learned. Not everyone shares these details and it’s great to know so future brides can be a little more prepared.
I’m excited for more posts, the honesty definitely makes them great to read!
I will say that I have been to daytime weddings where people GET DOWN. I think there are a bunch of factors that play into a party atmosphere at a wedding: good DJ, alcohol, and basically having friends/family that like to dance. When there are people on the floor, other folks follow.
Also, I agree with the poster above who said that dancing isn’t necessarily the be-all, end-all to determine what makes a fun wedding. I have been to really fun nighttime weddings where people don’t really dance because they are having a great time catching up with old friends, doing shots at the bar (!), etc., etc.
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Mrs. Joey, Seattle
Age and Occupation: 28, Project Administrator for Public Health NGO
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, High School History Teacher
Engagement Date: June 24, 2008
Wedding Date: August 2009
Venue: Eastside Catholic Chapel and Lake Union Cafe
About Me: I'm a Seattle girl through and through except for the fact that I don't drink coffee. I love my job most of the time because I get to travel and work with brilliant people who are trying to prevent Malaria. I love DIY projects of all sorts, cooking, and watching sports. I'd wear anything at Anthropologie and could spend all day on Etsy. I love to travel but shouldn't because I always get myself into unbelievable situations!
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