Our Wedding Idea - Would love some feedback

After much debate on how to make ourselves, and the entire family happy while also staying within a reasonable budget we have concocted quite the wedding event and I am curious to hear if you girls think this is fun and exciting or down right crazy.

My fiance's family is Greek and they really want us to get married in a Greek Church. I am not opposed to being married in a Greek Church (I still have to get baptized to do so) but my FI and I also want to have a traditional ceremony where we can say vows that we right to each other. This is not the norm for a Greek Ceremony.

So... we have come up with a plan that would go something like this:

A Sunday Wedding in January or February 2011

1pm or 2:00 pm Greek Ceremony @ Church
(Only Family expected but open to all invitees)

3:30-5:00pm Various Pictures

6:00pm-12:00pm
Ceremony (Traditional) 30 minutes
Cocktail Hour 1 Hour
Reception 4 Hours

most likely at Milleridge Cottage (this is our #1 venue choice)

The entire idea sounds exciting, thrilling, fun and scary all at the same time. But it is the only thing we can come up with that makes it work for all involved.

Thoughts?

If you want any info about the Milleridge, feel free to FM me! It was a wonderful, incredible, lovely place for a wedding and they are amazing. The food is fabulous there too!

Good luck with your planning!!!!!

---

Posted by springsandra

If you want any info about the Milleridge, feel free to FM me! It was a wonderful, incredible, lovely place for a wedding and they are amazing. The food is fabulous there too!

Good luck with your planning!!!!!

---

Sandra, I have to be honest, I have stalked your review and my entire family has seen it too. LOL! Your review and pics made me fall in love with the Milleridge. I would love to know what food was a rave and what flavor cake you chose. They no longer include any centerpieces other then votives but I am debating using their florist either way. My BM is Debbie--so far she has been great especially since I have changed dates about 20 times 48 hours Nothing is booked yet tho, we are just trying to figure it all out.

I don't think it's a problem..I just have 1 question for the 2nd ceremony with it be with an officiant or would it just be the 2 of you standing in front of your guests.

I don't see it as a problem

---

Posted by Im getting Married

I don't think it's a problem..I just have 1 question for the 2nd ceremony with it be with an officiant or would it just be the 2 of you standing in front of your guests.

I don't see it as a problem

---

It would be an officiant. Basically for everyone who didnt come to the morning --(which would most likely be immediate family only attending) It would be them seeing us marry for the first time.

---

Posted by EngagedMichi

Sandra, I have to be honest, I have stalked your review and my entire family has seen it too. LOL! Your review and pics made me fall in love with the Milleridge. I would love to know what food was a rave and what flavor cake you chose. They no longer include any centerpieces other then votives but I am debating using their florist either way. My BM is Debbie--so far she has been great especially since I have changed dates about 20 times 48 hours Nothing is booked yet tho, we are just trying to figure it all out.

---

Debbie was our BM too! She was wonderful to work with! Extremely helpful and very quick to email back whenever I had a question.

I haven't actually written a review yet for our wedding day, but I have posted a ton about it... Maybe actually writing my wedding day review will be a new year's resolution. Glad to hear that it's been helpful to you!

We did their gold buffet menu so our guests were able to taste pretty much everything! We had something like 8 main dishes, plus a thousand other things. The food just kept coming and coming!!! I loved that everyone could eat so dang much! People are seriously still coming up to me to talk about how amazing the food was at our wedding.

Flowers really weren't important to me at all. I didn't even know they were going to have votives on the tables. I had wanted to keep it as flame-free as possible since my DH had a bad fire in his apartment complex in Dec '06 that left him losing almost everything (it was really scary) -- he hates fires! So we did small CPs with vases I bought (that were really water pitchers) and just roses on the tables. I got these tiny votives on clearance in my colors (opaque green, purple, and white) and bought the flameless flickering tea lights for them. With how charming and beautiful it is there with the rich wood floors and all, it really didn't need a ton of extras. I went with a florist I met at a wedding expo that was able to do everything for me (including decorating the steps, which is something I really wanted!) for under $1k. Their house florist (which I think is Lovin Oven) is supposed to be very good too. I had difficulty getting an appointment with them that worked with my schedule since I was planning from Brooklyn and we did the entire planning in 6 months.

I loved our Mr. & Mrs. introduction down the stairs to bubbles there, but if you're getting married at a church, you won't need all that. Although you could still do it since you're planning on having a small ceremony there too. It's up to you how you feel about that.

I would say though that the Milleridge has beautiful grounds for photos. You probably won't need all those many hours for photos between your ceremony and the reception. Since you're looking at a Sunday night, you might want to start an hour earlier to try to encourage people to stay until the end. Personally, I would leave early if a Sunday night wedding was supposed to go until 12 am. But I'm more of a morning person, so you should do what works for you. That's always how it is with weddings! You have to plan for you and your family!

We got married in the Atrium room, which they quickly re-set for the CH. The buffet was also in there. I'm so glad we were able to use that room for so much during our wedding!

Since you're thinking of 200+ guests, you will fill the space much better than we did with our 110. But it didn't feel empty, either, which was great!

I have to send Debbie a TY card still! You'll have to let me know if you see it there in the future!!!!

The cake was AMAZING. They were able to recreate the picture I gave them and make it exactly how I wanted it. I just loved it so much!!!!!!! We went with vanilla cake with vanilla pudding filling and buttercream. I highly recommend the buttercream! They were able to design it how I wanted and it tasted soooooooooooooo delicious!!! I had almost 3 pieces!!!!!

I could go on and on... which really means I should do my review, but I'm still putting it off... but I'd love to tell you more (although if you've been stalking me so much, you probably know it all!).

Have fun planning!

ETA: Just so you know, they add in an extra 30 minutes before your ceremony itself starts there. I would call your wedding for 5 pm instead of 6, to be honest.

I think it's a great idea...your close friends would probably go to both but if it was me I wouldn't care..also it works well if you have people that show up late..they can see the 2nd one

---

Posted by EngagedMichi

Wow thank you for all that information!!!! I would love to do the reception earlier but at the Cottage they are very specific about the time being after 6pm b/c of their day weddings. We are hoping to book a Sunday nite that we are off on Monday. Most of our guests are teachers and such so they would have off the next day. I hope even I can stay awake so late! LOL

---

Ah, that's great then if you can work it out so it's a Sunday before a Monday holiday! How wonderful!

That makes sense about their needing it to be 6 pm. Our wedding was a day wedding (11:30 call). We saw each other for photos beforehand.

I was going to say that the best place to see all that Milleridge can give you as far as how warm and beautiful it is can be seen in the DIY parents albums I made.

(You may have seen this already...)

Album

great idea!!! my friend did that with her wedding. well something similar.. she went to two different churches but it all worked out, so good luck!

sounds perfect!!!!!! go for it!!!

I think your plan is a great idea to accommodate both your wishes and your FH's!! Good luck!!

Michelle,

I dont know if this will help you in any way or not. DH & I were in the same situation as you & FH. we are Russian Orthodox & the same thing goes where they do not say vows during a Russian Orthodox ceremony.

Rather than cause family upset & have people sit though yet another ceremony we opted to have a 2nd & private ceremony at our HM location (which was on the beach). It was honestly the best decision we ever did - it was so much more intimate & meant more b/c it was just the 2 of us & we really honestly enjoyed just as much as the public ceremony with our family & friends, if not maybe even a little more . It's just something to think about - food for thought - Im just thinking that as a family member they may not want to sit through a 2nd ceremony (I have Greek relatives & I know they would not be pleased if they had to sit through 2 wedding ceremonies - Orthodox - whether Greek or Russian just dont believe in vows b/c they feel that it's a sign of a contract & that in an Orthodox marriage it a union not a contract. Believe me - I did a ton a reading up about this & a lot of arguing with my mother b/c I wanted to have 'unsaid vows' -oi! I definitetly think you should have a 2nd ceremony where you can say what you want to one another - I wholeheartedly agree about that...but give it some thought if you want to have everyone there or do it as a destination wedding just you & DH....think about it. I have the pics from our beach wedding in one of my albums - go see & you will see what I mean.

I am a milleridge bride too.. if you need anything feel free to ask... I would just double check the times..

i don't remember them having such a late ending time for a sunday night wedding.

also if you do have the hours in between, you can go to planitng fields for pix... gorgeous grounds!!