Overcrowding the ceremony space

Hello out there brides and grooms:

It's been awhile since I've posted and it feels good to speak out again. So here's some advice in case you're planning your wedding right now. Be careful of having too much clutter at the front of the ceremony space, you know, the place where you and your officiant and your wedding party stand.

Not long ago, I officiated a wedding where the bride, with all the best intentions, added just one too many decorative details than she could comfortably control if other variables entered the picture, which they did. She had planned to have her wedding outdoors (it was June, so why not?). But since it was a rainy day the event was moved into the resort's large banquet room.This happens all the time at wedding venues and it's usually accomodated by setting up the reception tables on one end and cordoning off the room with dividers of some kind.

In this case, the room was too crowded for the front of the ceremony to fit in at a safe and aesthetic distance from the guests. Caterers almost always set the front row too close to the ceremony area for my taste. I prefer a good eight to ten feet. I usually get six feet if I'm lucky. What happened here was a refusal to move the front row back. But the bride brought in a construction of something like a half gazebo, which would have worked just fine outdoors, but moved indoors was cramped. So when the bridesmaids came down the aisle, and the videographer planted himself between the end of the gazebo and the front row of guests, the bridesmaids couldn't get by to stand in their designated place. So I asked the videographer to move, he backed up, and knocked over the large glass vase of long stemmed roses that had been placed at the foot of the gazebo. Get the picture?

All of this happened before the bride got down the aisle, but when she did arrive, her bridesmaids were standing about four to five feet further away than we had rehearsed and she asked me why no one was adjusting her train. I finally elbowed the videographer into the rear of the arrangement so we could look like a choreographed wedding party.

So now having looked at all the details, it strikes me there are two places to watch out for: since venues may not be able to get the chairs far enough back for a beautiful picture perfect aesthtetic distance for the wedding party, at least get the videographer out of the way. If I could do this wedding over, I would have instructed him to stay in the center aisle to get his good shots. The second piece of advice is to the bride and/or wedding planner: use as little as possible up front. Tall vases or a very simple arch are good enough and do the job quite well.

The Wedding Season

It's in the last active month in the Northeast. There are few weddings in November and even fewer in December. Of course, January through March is also extremely quiet. The exceptions are New Year's Eve and Valnetine's Day, but those are too often on weekdays and the weddings are tiny.

What is there about a winter wedding? You certainly don't have to worry about guests having other plans and missing your date. And honeymoon prices are often pretty good. Resort wedding venues offer better prices in the off-season as well. You can get a good location at 20 to 30% off in some lovely Berkshires and Cape Cod venues if you're looking to marry in Massachusetts.

So if you're budget-minded, book yourself a winter date. I'm available after Novmber 11th!