Wedding Wednesday

So here is Edition 1 of Wedding Wednesday!


I actually am loving the blog platform to talk about some of the details of our upcoming wedding! It seems like such a great place to get all of the jumbled thoughts in my head out, and hopefully get a few opinions in return.

So as I mentioned last week, I have gotten started on the whole wedding planning pretty quickly. We did not want a long engagement, we have already dated for 6 years, not much else to figure out, so why wait another year. I always thought I would love the whole "planning a wedding" thing, but truth be told, not loving it as much as I thought. I am most excited to have it all get here so we can be Married! It is SO crazy to say that!


Probably the biggest thing for me is to have much of our wedding details remain a secret until the actual wedding day. I think it's so boring when you know what everything will look like and what to expect when you go to a wedding, so I hope to maintain an aire of surprise. You may wonder how I plan to do that when I intend to gab about our wedding to the entire world wide web, but fear not, many of things I throw up will not be the exact details of our wedding, just the general ideas. Currently, we are about 8 months from our wedding, so while we just got started there are some things that are requiring our attention:




Save the Dates

Now while save the dates aren't a requirement, we are going to be doing them. There are a lot of out of town guests that will need time to make arrangements, not to mention it will be around the time when school starts back for kids, teachers, and adults like me who prefer to live off of academic calendars pretending we are still in college.


My great save the date debate is...

Picture

or no picture...

I have seen several save the dates I really like that do not include a picture, or our last names as many save the dates do not. Probably my biggest concern with lack of picture is what if people don't recognize our names, but would recognize our faces (note: these people are most likely family friends and distant relatives) we aren't just inviting a bunch of strangers.



Last names I have the same feeling about, I feel like we either need to have our last names OR our picture on the save the dates.




 Colors

Another one of my current debates reigns over colors, I have a color scheme in mind that I really love. Do I incorporate my colors into my save the dates and invitations, or should I use that opportunity to introduce other colors that will not be visible at the wedding?

 
Time
 How late is too late?


We are planning an evening wedding, and it is intended to be a formal event. In the interest of our guests (and my groom) we are trying to have the wedding at a time when the temperatures will be...less brutal. Let's face it, we live in Florida, and are getting married in Florida, any month except December and January are likely to have at least a few days of temps in the 80* range, and actually it was 80* here on 1/1 and 1/2 so even that isn't a fair claim- it's always hot!

 I would like everyone to be able to utilize the additional outdoor spaces that come with the venue we have chosen if they would like to, and in my opinion the best way to do that is to push the wedding into the evening hours. While there will be some children and older people, the bulk of my guest list is of the 'have a good time' mindset, so I don't feel like I lose my key demographic if I push the time back a smidge. Not to mention people who do Friday weddings always have them start late, right???

 
So here is the question I pose to you:
Would you be annoyed to be a guest at a wedding if the ceremony started at 6:30pm...
The coctail hour (with snacks) would start at 7pm...
and dinner service would be started by 7:45pm????


My thought thus far has been, while it is a tad late for a usual dinner time, it is meant to be an evening affair and a night out. Guests will be aware of the start time and expected dinner time so they will be able to plan meals and snacks that day accordingly to make sure they are prepared to wait until 7:45pm for dinner.




So I ask for your brutally honest input- I would give it...

-Save the dates: do they require a happy pic/last names/ both/ neither/ or pick one?????

-Do I keep all std's and invitations in my wedding color scheme or can I get a little crazy with the stationary?

- Start time: How late is too late????