Planning a wedding reception means remembering a million and one things that need doing on or before the fateful day. Plans have to be made and set in motion long before the wedding day for things to go off without a hitch. Checklists are the backbone of wedding reception planning and if you have a detailed checklist to hand you can‟t go far wrong.
Once you finalize your plans for the wedding ceremony you need to focus your attention on the wedding reception. It is better to keep two separate checklists, one for each part of the event. The guidelines that follow should help you get started making your personal wedding reception checklist.
Heading the list is the wedding date, time and venue. You need to first fix the date taking into consideration the season in which you plan to marry. Then you need to consider the time, will it be a morning wedding because you are scheduled to fly out that same night on your honeymoon or will it be an evening wedding with a night planned in a luxury hotel.
If you are having a church wedding you need to figure on at least an hour for the service, so you can fix the time accordingly at which your guests will arrive at the reception hall. Will you serve cocktails to get the party started while you finish off the photo session and then come to the hall? Will you take the pictures before the wedding ceremony starts and forget about superstition and the groom not seeing the bride before the wedding?
What sort of venue are you looking for? This ties in with the season in which you plan to marry. If its spring or summer you could choose an outdoor wedding reception? If its the fall season, you could choose an outdoor ceremony and indoor reception. You need to book the venue at least 8 months in advance to be sure of finding the best venue to match your reception theme.
Make a note of decorations and flowers for the church, entrance, hall, stage, cake table, guest book table, gifts table and dinner tables. For the buffet table as well if you plan to serve a buffet. Outdoor receptions will require you to add the arch and aisle to the list.
You then have transportation, seating arrangements, cake, band, DJ, music selection, toast, speeches, dinner and thank you cards and gifts to deal with. You have to choose the vendors for the various supplies from flowers to photographs, food, drinks, transport and more.
