Wedding Reception
After the ceremony and the photo's we arrived upstairs of the reception at about 5:15 pm ready for a 5:30pm entrance.
I used this time to have a drink, touch up my make-up, go to the toilet and made sure everyone was in order for the official arrival.
Since my husband is from New Zealand it was appropriate to have 'Slice of Heaven' as the song we all walk into.
I sent the junior bridesmaid together, then the bridesmaids and their partners followed by us.
The entrance was quite dramatic as we had to walk down these winding stairs to the reception room.
From 5:30 - 6:00pm we just had some soft background music while we caught our breath and had a rest.
We decided to do our speeches at 6:00pm at the start of the reception as we felt this was more appropriate getting the formalities out of the way so we could all relax.
My husband and my father were a bit nervous so this suited them better.
The order of speeches went: - My husband - The Best Man - John's Brother - My Father We kept them short, sweet and straight to the point because there is nothing worse than 5 hour long speeches and people ranting and raving about nothing important.
Dinner was next and we love food so we opted to go for a full buffet.
After the wedding everyone we spoke to raved about the food.
Especially about how much seafood there was and the quality of it.
They also commented on the wide variety of dishes to suit everyone.
My husband had said all along the planning stage that he really wanted to have plenty of food and drink for everyone as this was very important to him.
We put AU $2500 on the bar and this lasted us the entire night and we even got about $400 back the next day of what we hadn't used.
I was quite organised and I knew some of my husband's friend might try to score some free drinks of shots or expensive spirits so here is what I did.
The bridal table could have whatever they wanted but there were no shots or cocktails and they could only buy one drink at a time.
All our guests were allowed as much wine, beer, soft drink as they liked.
They had to pay for their own spirits.
I gave the bar staff a list of immediate family that could have what they wanted but again there was no shots or spirits and only one drink at a time.
On the night I was right about some people trying to get spirits for free and the bar staff stopped them in their tracks.
So if you want something like this make sure you give a detailed list of instructions for them.
After dinner we took the opportunity to go around to each table and say Hi to everyone and thank them for coming.
This took quite a bit of time but everyone was really appreciative that we took the time to do this.
The cake cutting was my favourite moment as we gathered everyone outside and when the knife hit the cake 3 mins worth of fireworks went off in the background.
We hadn't told anyone of this plan and everyone's mouth dropped open in awe.
Those 3 mins seemed like an eternity but the fireworks lit up the sky and made the cake cutting very special.
Straight after that we did out bridal waltz to "If I Aint Got You" by Alicia Keys & Usher.
All the dancing practice we had went out the window on the night as I totally drew a blank on what I should be doing so we pretty much winged it and the DJ invited our bridal party up half way through so that was good to get the spotlight of us...
maybe we were looking silly trying to dance! So from about 8:30 - 10:30pm we mingled, did a bit of dancing, saw some of the older relatives off as there were quite tired and took in how fast the day had gone.
Even my husband and I got about 15mins quite time outside to get some fresh air and I suggest doing this.
It was really the first second alone we had had for the last 2 days.
Eventually at 10:30am we danced to the last song of the night and threw the bouquet from right at the top of the stairs we had made our entrance from.
We were absolutely exhausted.
It was quite sad for me though because I had spent all this time and effort + money on this day and it had gone so quick.
It really is a magical day and at the end you just think wow.
I used this time to have a drink, touch up my make-up, go to the toilet and made sure everyone was in order for the official arrival.
Since my husband is from New Zealand it was appropriate to have 'Slice of Heaven' as the song we all walk into.
I sent the junior bridesmaid together, then the bridesmaids and their partners followed by us.
The entrance was quite dramatic as we had to walk down these winding stairs to the reception room.
From 5:30 - 6:00pm we just had some soft background music while we caught our breath and had a rest.
We decided to do our speeches at 6:00pm at the start of the reception as we felt this was more appropriate getting the formalities out of the way so we could all relax.
My husband and my father were a bit nervous so this suited them better.
The order of speeches went: - My husband - The Best Man - John's Brother - My Father We kept them short, sweet and straight to the point because there is nothing worse than 5 hour long speeches and people ranting and raving about nothing important.
Dinner was next and we love food so we opted to go for a full buffet.
After the wedding everyone we spoke to raved about the food.
Especially about how much seafood there was and the quality of it.
They also commented on the wide variety of dishes to suit everyone.
My husband had said all along the planning stage that he really wanted to have plenty of food and drink for everyone as this was very important to him.
We put AU $2500 on the bar and this lasted us the entire night and we even got about $400 back the next day of what we hadn't used.
I was quite organised and I knew some of my husband's friend might try to score some free drinks of shots or expensive spirits so here is what I did.
The bridal table could have whatever they wanted but there were no shots or cocktails and they could only buy one drink at a time.
All our guests were allowed as much wine, beer, soft drink as they liked.
They had to pay for their own spirits.
I gave the bar staff a list of immediate family that could have what they wanted but again there was no shots or spirits and only one drink at a time.
On the night I was right about some people trying to get spirits for free and the bar staff stopped them in their tracks.
So if you want something like this make sure you give a detailed list of instructions for them.
After dinner we took the opportunity to go around to each table and say Hi to everyone and thank them for coming.
This took quite a bit of time but everyone was really appreciative that we took the time to do this.
The cake cutting was my favourite moment as we gathered everyone outside and when the knife hit the cake 3 mins worth of fireworks went off in the background.
We hadn't told anyone of this plan and everyone's mouth dropped open in awe.
Those 3 mins seemed like an eternity but the fireworks lit up the sky and made the cake cutting very special.
Straight after that we did out bridal waltz to "If I Aint Got You" by Alicia Keys & Usher.
All the dancing practice we had went out the window on the night as I totally drew a blank on what I should be doing so we pretty much winged it and the DJ invited our bridal party up half way through so that was good to get the spotlight of us...
maybe we were looking silly trying to dance! So from about 8:30 - 10:30pm we mingled, did a bit of dancing, saw some of the older relatives off as there were quite tired and took in how fast the day had gone.
Even my husband and I got about 15mins quite time outside to get some fresh air and I suggest doing this.
It was really the first second alone we had had for the last 2 days.
Eventually at 10:30am we danced to the last song of the night and threw the bouquet from right at the top of the stairs we had made our entrance from.
We were absolutely exhausted.
It was quite sad for me though because I had spent all this time and effort + money on this day and it had gone so quick.
It really is a magical day and at the end you just think wow.
