What was a "WOW" factor for you at the best wedding you've ever been to?

Oh yes! we are having a "midnight snack" although it will be well before midnight since our wedding ends at 10:45 lol we are having Mexican corn. Our caterer gave us that option for free so we definitely added that in! I completely agree with you on having a late night snack!

@Olivia oh. my. goodness. A champagne tower sounds AMAZING!!!

This one family friend wedding had 2 things: 1) Surprise performers at night that came in and did a special dance/show/drummer thing and 2) Their crab croquettes were out of this world. So good my now husband ate like 6-7 of them during cocktail hour!

I'm absolutely loving the late night snack idea. I'm hoping to find a reasonable food truck to arrive around 9.

Large, live bands. I love music and dancing.

I once attended a wedding that took place at the bride's parent's home. An estate really, and the FOB had put in a makeshift golf course by sinking coffee cans into the lawn. We played "golf" while listening to a 4 string quartet play in the background. It was pretty awesome!

I agree with the late night snacks too! One of my daughter's is doing sliders and pizza as hers.

The most memorable things I've experienced as a wedding guest were amazing cocktail hours - one had huge raw bar display and caviar, in addition to literally hundreds of other choices of stations and passed appetizers. Another was a big sushi display for cocktail hour (can you tell I'm a seafood junkie!?!). And of course fireworks at the end of the night!

Best things I've seen:

In n' Out truck

Donut towers

Scenic venues

Two separate weddings, but my favorite things were a huge selection of apps during cocktail hour, and a live band that played all my favorite 90's music.

At the last wedding I went to, in addition to several regular photographers and videographers, there was also a drone filming the entire event.

I guess I can't say me, huh?

To me, the wow factor is the venue, because the 'wow-worthy" ones have lots of touches along the way that contribute; meeting guests at arrival with champagne (I'd need to know more about the tower, because if they do that thing where they stack the glasses and then pour from top to bottom? No bubbles, no good. ), great hors d'oeuvres served beautifully, interesting stations (here, the bacon stations and the man cave stations are killer!), fantastic music (one of my faves was a 6 piece Latin band that greeted everyone at cocktail hour, another was a steel drum band at a beach venue), and gorgeous unusual views don't hurt.

A BACON STATION?! That's all I've ever wanted in life. That wins hands down!!

I was at a wedding in Disney World at Epcot, we had cocktail hour in a private area by the lagoon and got to see the fireworks. Kinda hard to top that!

Everyone loved my popcorn station as a late night snack.

I agree that venues can be a big wow factor too.

The bride hired an opera singer to sing Ave Maria a capella as she walked up the aisle. It was in a huge church and the sound reverberated beautifully and gave us all chills (and made quite a few guests, close or not to the couple, cry).

A couple had a rather late wedding so the reception was ending around 1:00am and when you are drunk you don't want the fancy stuff to eat. She had a basket full of cheeseburgers from BK to take one and it was pure heaven.

I will add that the most impressive party I've ever been to ever was when I was a little girl and one of my middle school classmates turned out to be the daughter of a wealthy Saudi who had moved to North America and sent their children to our private school. We got were given legit 22K gold pendants as party favors. I would not recommend any bride try to duplicate this, but I remember thinking there was no way this was real, and showing my mom and her freaking out and insisting that I return it. I still have it to this day because the girl's family insisted. I'll never have the opportunity go to something like that again (which is sad) but boy am I grateful to have the experience the first time because it's one of the most memorable, genuinely surprising things that I vividly remember from childhood and I mean - gold.

The party itself was a bit weird because it was girls only.

I don't necessarily have a "best wedding I've ever been to" but these are my experiences with the things I enjoyed (and didn't like) at my "top 3" weddings. Wedding A was fun because I liked the music and danced the night away with FH. Cons- Blah buffet food that had no taste and was lukewarm. Wedding B was held at an incredibly beautiful venue. It was elegant and classy. Lavish & super expensive. Good food. Cons- I would say 80% of the songs the DJ was playing were slow songs that I had never heard of. I didn't dance much. I still enjoyed this wedding because I was there with FH and it was just stunning with great food. Wedding C had the best cocktail hour food EVER! The main meal was also good and there was an abundance of desserts. My stomach was very happy. The venue itself was nice but the DJ played mostly slow country songs. (I love country music but I got tired of hearing it non-stop). He also played overplayed radio songs such as "Call me maybe" and we danced very little. Still had a good time with my FH. I've been to a few other weddings that I don't remember much from. These are my 3 most memorable. What mattered most to me was being there with FH. The other things that mattered were alcohol, food, music and the appearance of the venue.

The groom cut the cake with a samurai sword - without a shirt on. He had an extremely good torso. Man, did a lot of us envy the bride!