Taking Notes

On Friday, Keegan and I went to his co-worker, J's, wedding in Tuscaloosa, AL. This was the first wedding that I had been to since a friend's wedding back in May of '09. I was excited to go and see how a wedding all comes together now that I'm almost finished planning my own. The only downside was that during the entire wedding, Keegan and I were comparing J's wedding to our own. It wasn't a what-we're-going-to-do-better-than-them comparison, but more, paying attention to the details that worked/didn't work and things we wanted to do/don't want to happen at our own wedding. As a downside, since we were taking notes throughout the entire thing, it was kind of difficult to just sit back and enjoy everything.

Anyways, some notes we took:

- Try our best to get the wedding started on time. I know that things can/will go wrong, but I really don't want to keep our guests waiting. It was kind of awkward just sitting there, surrounded by people we didn't know waiting for the wedding to start.

- Along those same lines, we need to keep things moving once the wedding does start. J started the processional, and once he had walked up to the ceremony space, it was another 5 minutes before the grandparents were seated. Then another 5 before the wedding party started. It took at least 10 minutes for the entire wedding party to walk up to where J was standing. The entire time, J looked so nervous/awkward and I felt bad for him. 

 - While I enjoyed the ceremony that J and his wife had crafted for themselves, to me, it was very textbook. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, everyone should have a ceremony that fits their relationship. However, for Keegan and I, it solidified our decision to write our own ceremony. I love that our ceremony is so personal to us and incorporates all aspects of our lives.

- If our videographer wants to put a mic on Keegan, or my dad (our officiant,) then we need to make sure that it is plugged in and working properly. The entire ceremony, the mic on J's officiant kept going in and out, making it very difficult to understand him. 

- Once the ceremony is finished, we want to have my dad make an announcement for our guests about what they need to do next. J's officiant made an announcement that we were going to enjoy a reception right next to the ceremony space, but we didn't really know what to do. Food was set out, but we weren't sure if we were supposed to start eating yet. All of the guests just stood around for 20 minutes before someone made the jump and started the food line.

- Make sure someone announces everything that we are doing if we want our guests to pay attention. J and his wife decided to cut the cake right away, but no one made an announcement and half of the guests were still walking from the ceremony space or talking to each other, so no one really payed attention. This also happened with the garter/bouquet tosses. I wasn't expecting everyone to come up and participate, but it's no fun to throw a garter to only 2 boys under the age of 10. I felt really bad for the bride and groom because a lot of people missed important parts of the reception.

- Keegan and I were originally going to serve only appetizers at our wedding, but after seeing J do the same, we were glad that we changed to having a full pasta bar. J's wedding was at 6:30 (ours will be at 6,) right at dinner time. I know that a lot of people, including us, had come straight from work and had not eaten dinner before the wedding. While there were a lot of appetizers, there wasn't enough food to count as "dinner." Keegan and I actually went and got dinner after the wedding because we were still hungry.

- I'm glad that we are going to have basically a party after our ceremony. J's wedding was only about 2 hours from start of ceremony until they did their exit and it felt very wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. Everything happened so quickly, so a lot of things were missed by guests. I don't think the bide and groom ate at all, and they hardly had time to go around and greet all of their guests. Since so many of our guests are going to be coming from out of town/state/country, I really want to be able to spend time with them. I thought that our 5 hour time frame was a bit crunched, but after seeing J do everything in the span of 2 hours, it makes me less worried about being able to fit everything in and see everyone.

- I think that Keegan is coming around to having a candy bar after seeing the one at J's wedding. Woohoo!


Again, I just want to re-iterate that these points are in no way of saying that J's wedding was a bad wedding. In fact, I enjoyed myself a lot, and I loved being able to see on of our friends marry the love of his life. Some of these point are things that Keegan and I want to avoid doing because it doesn't fit us and our wedding. Some of the things that we saw at J's wedding solidified that we made the correct choice for us.Overall, I am so glad that we were able to see J get married. Not only because we got to see him so happy, but selfishly, it helped us figure out a few more of the nitty-gritty details for our own wedding.

We get to go to another wedding at the end of June for Keegan's cousin. I'm beyond excited to see L & K as well as finally meet a lot of Keegan's family. I'm also doing my hair and makeup trial with Keegan's other cousin, Audra who is one of my bridesmaids. I can't wait! After L&K's wedding, we'll be next!