Send-off

You might want to ask first with the venue to see if there’s any restrictions because some don’t allow send off of things you throw, etc

I've actually never been to a wedding with a send off. Usually, the couple is the last to leave and there's an after party with the couple. I have only ever seen it in movies. If you don't want to have one, you don't have to!

Personally we’re not doing a sendoff. We’re going to have way too much to do after it’s over I’m sure and then us and our guests are heading over to the inn that we reserved at the venue. I agree with PP above that if you do think about a sendoff, many venues don’t allow sparklers any longer or streamers fireworks etc.

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Good to know. Photographers keep asking me about it, so I figured it's standard. And I've been warned by different people not to cut the cake too early if I want a send-off because then guests will leave before because they think after cake the reception is over.

I am afraid our guests are pretty traditional.
I don't know.

We've been thinking about an after party. I like the idea. Where are you going /where do you have the after-party? I need a budget friendly option. Can I keep wearing my wedding dress?

View Quoted Comment We had an old-fashioned hotel party, which we didn't plan, but clearly other people were prepared with booze and some snacks. Granted, my wedding was pre-Covid. We didn't have many people leave early. I remember one couple left early because they had left their 1 year old at home and needed to relieve grandma. I personally changed out of my dress into shorts and a t-shirt for the after party to be more comfortable, but you can keep wearing your dress if you want. No clear rules.

We didn't have a send off, but we did have an after party. We gathered at a bar across the street from our hotel block, and people went straight there from the venue and I still wore my dress. My husband and I pre-ordered some nacho platters for the afterparty, but this was super casual and guests bought their own drinks. Our afterparty was very budget friendly!

Send offs are a new thing here, too, unless the couple actually leaves the site for their honeymoon. Recently, many couples do fake sendoffs for pictures. Others dance on til the venue closes or bedtime. We were not going anywhere, so we called time for the last third still there at 3 am. People started getting kids from sitters by 1 am, a natural exit for many. We did not have a wedding cake, we had lots of desserts. including some layer cakes, pies, cheesecakes, canoli, baklava, trays of streusel. We finished after dinner dessert served from pastry/ dessert carts around 9:30. But at 10:30 they put out a whole dessert buffet again, with additional dessert breads , and fruit. And coffee, and liquor spiked coffee, as well as the bar.
I have been at several weddings where after an early sendoff, people just kept going and left hours before the end. The couple came back, but it killed the reception. Be clear about what you want, but one they leave their seats, many gather up to go no matter what. So keep your sendoff for the very end.

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I like the nacho party at a bar. I was thinking about something similar. Though there is no bar across the street. :-)

Who did you invite to the afterparty? I wonder if we should just leave it open and whoever wants to come comes or if we should only invite out-of-town guests and really close friends. Should we have people RSVP before or just see spontaniously. But how do you make a reservation when you have no idea if you end up with 10 or 40 people??

My other idea has been to rent an AirBnB-House, have some of our out-of-town-guests stay there and do a casual garden party. It's just been difficult to find a place like that that's in our budget and allows parties (though it wouldn't be a lot of alcohol and all very responsible but you still deal with noise and cars). We will see. My fiancé said he will look into this because it was totally stressing me out to have to organise this on top of everything else. At first I loved the idea but now it just feels like way to much work and I prefer the pub-idea. We'll see.

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That sounds lovely and would have been my preference but it just doesn't fit with what was realistic for us. The most important thing for me is that we don't start the ceremony not later than 1pm, so that people on the other end of the world can watch it. And we don't have much money, so we weren't flexible with our venue and now have ceremony+reception from 1-6pm. It took me a while to get to terms with that but now I think it will be a beautiful day and I am focusing on the positive (like getting to our hotelroom early :-) ).

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I'll check with them. But because of that I was more thinking in terms of bubbles, streamers or a grand exit in a cool car or something like that. But I was thinking maybe someone has a more creative idea than this.

View Quoted Comment I did bubbles for mine actually! The photo comes out really nicely.

View Quoted Comment I hate it when reality over rules nice plans. 🤪

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Haha. That could be the motto for my wedding. And I think that's one reason why I don't really enjoy planning and I am not that excited for the party.

But I have a friend who said about her marriage (not wedding): "The reality of being married is much harder that I had imagined of and it's different from what I have dreamt and imagined. But it is so much better because it is real and not just a dream." I've probably butchered this, but she said something like that and I've remembered it since. It's easy to dream up a great dream but it's always just a dream and reality is real and that's much better. And I am getting to do real life with FH as husband and wife after all the planning and the wedding is over. Yeah!

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We invited anyone who wanted to come, and no RSVP was needed! We had the info listed on our wedding website and announced the afterparty as a reminder during our thank-you speech after cake cutting. Mostly the young adults ended up coming, because it was so late at night We called the bar when making our plans and they said that we didn't need a reservation unless we had more than 50 people. We instructed them to only use our tab for nachos and guests bought drinks themselves (we had an open bar for the previous 4 hours at our reception, so now they were on their own for drinks). I think we ended up spending around $75 in total on the nachos. Everyone had a great time, and I would highly recommend having an afterparty at a bar or pub! Unless you will already be renting the AirBnB anyway, I would look into bars/pubs, which are super cost-effective places for afterparties.

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Thank you. This sounds really good and kind of what I envisioned if we don't do the AirBnB. I am glad you had such a great time. And I am encouraged to plan something similar.

We are doing a last dance and that would be cue for our guests to line up and do sparklers/ ribbon wands. We also got a bakery -pastries/sweets for our guests to take home. "A sweet ending to our new beginning."

I didn’t do a send off & mine ended 10:30pm. We had a last dance song a lot of people were leaving all different times.