Weddingbee Blog

I’ve mentioned a couple times before that we’re having several “satellite parties” surrounding our wedding: the Wedding Party Welcome Event, Rehearsal Dinner, After Party, and Sunday Luncheon, but I haven’t gone into much detail on any of these parties, except the rehearsal dinner.

So, I’ll start with the first one: the Thursday night get together for our wedding party, DJ/musician and officiant. Our officiant friend (and his girlfriend) are local, but the rest of our wedding party is spread across three different states, so we wanted to do something special for them to welcome them to town, and to thank them for standing up beside us on our big day. Annnnddd, it also might be a little bit of a bribe for some set up help on the afternoon of the wedding.

Our first thought had been to rent a box at a San Francisco Giants game, but since they’re not in town the Thursday before our wedding, instead we’re going to take everyone on a sunset cruise on the San Francisco Bay, with Adventure Cat Sailing.

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The sunset cruise lasts an hour and a half, and we will be paying for 12 people, so we get the discounted rate of $40 per person, which includes two drinks.

A couple hours before the cruise, we plan to have everyone meet in our hotel suite (they’re all staying there too), so we can give them their wedding party gifts, then head to Zorbas Pizza in downtown San Mateo, where we’ll treat them to an early dinner of pizza, beer and wine. Then we’ll all ride the train up to the city (and yes, you can drink on the train!), take a quick cab ride to the pier, and be off on the cruise.

After the cruise is over we’ll leave the rest of the night up to our friends, since at that point the paid for activities will have to come to an end. We definitely want to show everyone a good time, but paying for dinner, drinks, and the cruise for 12 people will exhaust our budget for this party. So, depending on how much our wedding party wants to spend on their own drinks, we can either pub hop in San Francisco until the last train leaves at midnight, or else just head back to the hotel and have some drinks there for a lot less.

Are you doing anything special for or with your wedding party in the days leading up to your wedding?