Weddingbee Blog

Mr. FF and I have a rather large wedding party, by pretty much anyone’s standards. You see, I have 6 girls on my side — a fair amount, I’m sure you’ll agree. Mr. French Fries? Welp… he has more groomsmen than I do bridesmaids. He has 9 groomsmen. Nine! He’s been in a *ton* of weddings, and has been a best man more than a few times. It’s sort of like 27 Dresses, but with tuxedo rentals. Note: yes, this means that we’re going to have “uneven” sides for our wedding party. Gasp! The shock! The horror! … Uhmm, not really. This isn’t prom court. It’s a wedding. I have bigger fish to fry than to worry that our sides are “uneven”.

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What’s the point of this post?

Well, if we have 6 bridesmaids, and he has 9 groomsmen, that puts our total “people count” at 15. 17 with us. Oh… but wait. We’re going to have two ushers. That’s 19. And we’re having 2 flower girls. That’s 21. And a ring bearer, so that makes 22. Oh, and we’re having a partridge in a pear tree, just for good measure. (I kid.) But seriously… 22 freaking people. That’s a lot of bodies. A lot of bodies that frankly, we’re not going to be in charge of carting around on our w-day.

Whaaaa? Yep. We’re not providing our wedding party with transportation the day of our wedding. First off, it’s a bit cost prohibitive to shuttle that number of people around. It’s not impossible, mind you, but it is pricey. And that’s money I’d rather use on great food/drinks at our reception (you know, the things our bridal party will really appreciate). And secondly, we’re not going to really need transportation for our wedding party, since we are not doing w-party pictures at any locations other than our church and our reception venue.

Double whaaaaa? Double yep. The way I see it, we can have group pictures taken with everyone after our ceremony at church, and again in the courtyard or somewhere else at our reception venue. Taking 22 people (not including at least one parent of the flower girls and the ring bearer) to a completely separate location, trying to keep track of everyone, trying to keep everyone focused on the task at hand to make sure we get our pics done and are back to the reception in time, and trying to keep everyone happy during this process is more logistical maneuvering than I’d like to take on that day. We love our friends, but we want to spend our time with them that day celebrating, not making sure everyone’s on the trolley to the reception. One of my bridesmaids took the no transportation/group photos at separate locations approach at her wedding, and it worked beautifully. No muss, no fuss.

So, what is the bridal party doing instead of traipsing around town with us? Well, everyone is driving their own cars to the church, so they’ll have a break between the ceremony and the reception to check into their hotel rooms, grab something to eat, take a nap, whatever. We’ll meet up at the reception when it starts, and we can grab some group shots then.

Mr. FF and I, during that time, will be having pics taken with our awesome photographer. I wanted to schedule our day so that we would have *plenty* of time to get some great shots, and I’m really looking forward to it being just the two of us for a little while on our wedding day.

How are you handling transportation on your wedding day? If you have a large bridal party, what did you choose to do?