Wedding Planner Book-Plan Your Reception

The reception is the big party to celebrate your marriage. At the reception, guests can take the time to personally congratulate you and your new spouse. You have as many details to keep track of for the reception as you do for the ceremony. Again, you should start by deciding what style of reception you want. Do you want a formal dinner? A buffet? A small outdoor party? After you know what type of reception you want, you can choose a venue. Your reception can be anywhere: reception or banquet halls, gardens, back yards, beaches….the choice is yours, but you need to decide quickly so that you can get the other plans started! Keep track of each possible venue, along with contact information and notes about each location, in your wedding planner book. You should make sure you know what times the location is available, how many people it accomodates, whether you can bring in your own caterer or if you have to use one of theirs, what time you have to clean up, etc. Don’t hire a reception hall until you know the answer to every question you can possibly think to ask. It helps to make a list of questions to take with you to each appointment. You can store the lists in your wedding book planner so that you can find them to compare later.

One of the most important parts of your reception is the food that you serve. If you choose a buffet style you can allow your guests to eat whenever they want. For a formal sit down dinner, you may choose to serve the food either before or after the receiving line (if you choose to have a receiving line). Other traditions you can consider including in your reception are cake cutting, a bouquet and garter toss, and dancing. If you want to do these things you will need to create a schedule to give to each of your vendors, your photographer, and your videographer. For example, if your reception starts at 6:00 pm with a receiving line, and you want to follow it with the cake cutting at 7:30 and your first dance at 7:45, then you need to write this schedule down in your wedding planner book so that you can access it easily as the big day approaches. Your vendors need to know how the evening should unfold.

Your wedding planner book will also be useful in keeping track of your vendors. You can keep the names and contact information of your photographer, videographer, band or DJ, reception hall, cake decorator, caterer, and florist. Because so many people are involved in planning a reception, it is absolutely necessary to keep their information stored in a single and easily accessible location. That is where your ultimate wedding planner book comes in very handy!

The reception is probably the part of your wedding that you spent the most time envisioning. You want it to look exactly right, and that means that you have to choose your colors, your decorations, the lighting, the flowers, and the cake…the list goes on forever. That is a lot of detail to remember, so it’s a good thing that you have been writing everything down in your wedding planner book. It’s a good idea to keep sample swatches and pictures in your book as well, so that you can show them to your vendors to create the look you want.