Logistical Planning for Weddings

Photo Credit: Atlanta Artistic Weddings Photography

One of the most important aspects of wedding planning is logistics.  It is not a pretty thing to do like picking out the flowers or linens. It is not something really fun like food tasting and finalizing menu. In fact, it is often overlook by the couples until it is too late.

Towards the end of the planning process, I normally have a meeting with the couple and one of the questions I ask is how is everyone in the bridal party going to get to the venue(s).

This question is especially important if there are out of town bridal party who do not drive. If the bridal party is big and nobody intends to drive, it will be a great idea to hire a transportation company to shuttle the bridal party.

Sometimes the bride and groom assign their groomsmen to be the drivers for their bridesmaids and family members who are not driving which is perfectly fine but I would suggest assigning specific passengers for each driver so there is not a chaos when everyone is trying to leave the house at the same time and avoiding the case where someone is left behind! (True story I heard: one time a bride was the one left behind as no car was assigned to pick her up and all the cars left the house.)

I also try to steer the bride and groom away from driving themselves on their own wedding day. Seriously, if there is one day when the bride and groom should be pampered, this is the day. So I always advocate for a responsible friend to drive the bridal car even if the couple is not hiring any transportation company.

You may also be surprised to learn that there are actually times when someone in the bridal party would tell me that they had no idea where the venue(s) are despite getting invitations from the couple (In this case, I discreetly inform them without letting the bride and groom know so the couple will not be upset). In my opinion, it is not a repetitive effort to print out the addresses of all the places that your bridal party needs to be on the final itinerary that you hand out to them. This can include the salon address, rehearsal dinner venue address, and of course reprint the ceremony and reception venue address.

You have spent a long time planning every detail of your wedding and this is the time to make sure everyone gets where they need to be on time to start the ceremony and that nobody gets lost on the way to the reception for the party to begin!

Atlanta Wedding Venue Spotlight - Berkeley Hills Country Club

I worked at Berkeley Hills Country Club last December for an intimate wedding of 30 guests.

One of the biggest challenges at the initial planning stage was for me to find a venue with less than 2 months' notice that will not feel overwhelming for this 30-person guest list as well as ensuring that my client would be able to meet the food and beverage minimum imposed by most venues for banquets.

Berkeley Hills offered us tremendous flexibility for last minute booking and the space was just right for my client's intimate guest list!

Since the wedding took place 2 days after Christmas, the club was already decorated:

On top of that, Berkeley Hills offered their house centerpieces if you choose to use them. Customization of the house centerpieces would have been easy if one wants to add flowers to it but we chose to keep it as it was:

The ballroom can accommodate 100 guests on round banquet tables. If the ballroom doors are opened, it can accommodate an additional 50 guests but we closed the doors for this particular wedding. Berkeley Hills offers a choice of silver or gold chiavari chair. We chose silver chiavari chairs to keep within the winter theme.

The food quality at Berkeley Hills was also top notch. We choose to serve a sit down two course lunch and here is the salad presentation but the entree was eaten before been captured on photo. :)

Other than catering and beverage, we were able to use any outside vendors we wanted.

We used The Baking Ground for the 2 tier wedding cake:

The bouquets were done by Peachtree Petals:

Complimentary champagne toast was included in the catering package and here is Berkeley Hills' amazing catering manager Ms. Angela Howard bringing some of the champagne out herself:

 

I totally enjoyed working with Ms. Howard for this wedding and I would not hesitate to bring another client back here for the quality service that they provided! 

All Photos are by Libby Photo