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FidgetyRat
Feb 1, 2005

Contemplating the suckiness of people since 1982
Sounds like a neat approach.. Not sure if you'll get more online then via response cards, because a lazy person will probably be lazy either way, but I can see paper invitations starting to dwindle in the next few years, especially with people born in the 90s where they have always had the Internet.

I still stuck with the traditional paper ones because I think its kind of fun.. We sent ours out around the 1st (which come to think of it may have been silly since some people got theirs on april fools..)..

We're having so much fun checking the mail every day for response cards that its almost comically sad.

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CalamityKate
Dec 4, 2004

Nione posted:

The other way I could go is wedding postcards AND an email invite. They'd at least get something in the mail, it would be less than half the cost, and we could still do the online RSVP.


I like this idea - it cuts down on 1/2 of your postage, avoids the "argh just mail it, rear end in a top hat!" factor, but you also still have a physical keepsake of the wedding!


One total surprise that my aunt got us was to frame our invitation and gave it to us along with our gift. I would never have thought to keep one for myself :downs: so it was a really thoughtful, and made me glad I ended up doing paper invites!

I don't know if I pimped our invites in here yet - but they were these from Wedding Paper Divas, and I had a great experience with them- the prices were not too outrageous for us, either.

Nione
Jun 3, 2006

Welcome to Trophy Island
Rub my tummy

LittleCat posted:

Nione: We sent out invitations, but in place of the yes/no section on the reply card, we told people to go to our website.

How did you do the RSVP on the website? Was it a webpage through a site specializing in wedding pages or did you do your own hosting? Did people have to log on to RSVP or did they just leave a guestbook message saying yes or no or did you have a form or something?

I have a friend who is a software engineer and he also does some web design and he's going to help us, so he'll probably know several little tricks, but I'd be interested in hearing how other people set up their websites and services they used.

FidgetyRat - I love getting mail and it was so disappointing when I didn't get responses back from people about her shower. So many on her side sent theirs back with little notes or messages and then my whole side of the family was just lame.

I think we'll definitely send something in the mail, but I don't know yet what it'll be. I'd love to send something really cool, but at the same time I don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it. Those wood veneer invitations posted earlier in the thread would have been PERFECT for our rustic/fall/winery wedding but unfortunately they would have cost about the same as our bar bill. And I can't justify that.

LittleCat
Oct 24, 2004

twinkle, twinkle, little bat
My fiancé is a web application programmer, so the site is pretty custom. I set up a pretty basic wordpress install and designed a cute theme, and we used that for directions, registry information and updates about the planning.

The RSVP system took a bit of thought. What we did was assign each invitation a random 3 digit number, which we put on the reply card. So when they clicked on "RSVP" on the website, it showed them a picture of the reply card with a circled number and told them to enter the number on their card to RSVP.

This is a screenshot of what happens after they say they're attending (if they click the X, it says "sorry you can't make it" and just has the comment box and the submit button):



It's all done with php as far as I know. There were a lot of weird situations to consider, like what happens if we invite a couple and only one wants to come (that works fine), or what happens if someone wants to bring an extra guest (they have to contact us and we'll enter them manually, cause that opens up too much potential for problems).

I know he was considering making the RSVP system available to other people, but I think he wanted to build a back end first - uploading the guests and such is done with a CSV import to the database or manual editing right now. (edit: I asked, and he's looking into making it into a proper wordpress plugin, but I don't know when he'll be able to do that - if anyone would be interested I'll pass it along)

LittleCat fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Apr 7, 2009

quaint bucket
Nov 29, 2007

Abbotsford? 19th?

Anyway, holy crap, that system looks nice and should be further developed as a "invitation card" replacement.

Midge the Jet
Sep 15, 2006

jomiel posted:

A little late to the name discussion--I was wondering if anyone is a different ethnicity from their fiance and what was other people's responses to meeting you.

Just saw this post...my fiance and I have been discussing the whole naming thing as well. In Italy, it is customary not to change your name after you are married. My parents are like that, my grandparents, etc. Plus, my name is really unique both in Italy and especially in the United States, and I would like my name to go on.

Plus, my fiance has an incredibly common name,Gardner, that just wouldn't sound right with my first name, which is Italian. He wants to take my name, but he doesn't want to deal with the whole name change process, so he's open to the idea of us both keeping our names and giving our future children my last name. In a way, its happened in my family before; my dad has his mom's name since her and my grandfather were not legally married until 1988 (unfortunately, my grandfather's name was extremely unique...there is not a whole lot of them left).

Ah well, we still have some time to go before we have to sign off on the documents.

Sneaky Monkey
Jan 12, 2007

Beware of Hug Ninja. Trespassers will be hugged.

LittleCat posted:

My fiancé is a web application programmer, so the site is pretty custom. I set up a pretty basic wordpress install and designed a cute theme, and we used that for directions, registry information and updates about the planning.

The RSVP system took a bit of thought. What we did was assign each invitation a random 3 digit number, which we put on the reply card. So when they clicked on "RSVP" on the website, it showed them a picture of the reply card with a circled number and told them to enter the number on their card to RSVP.

This is a screenshot of what happens after they say they're attending (if they click the X, it says "sorry you can't make it" and just has the comment box and the submit button):



It's all done with php as far as I know. There were a lot of weird situations to consider, like what happens if we invite a couple and only one wants to come (that works fine), or what happens if someone wants to bring an extra guest (they have to contact us and we'll enter them manually, cause that opens up too much potential for problems).

I know he was considering making the RSVP system available to other people, but I think he wanted to build a back end first - uploading the guests and such is done with a CSV import to the database or manual editing right now. (edit: I asked, and he's looking into making it into a proper wordpress plugin, but I don't know when he'll be able to do that - if anyone would be interested I'll pass it along)

This is a really nice setup. I'm planning on doing something similar, but I don't have a lot of PHP experience, so I'll be learning along the way. Any spare advice would be appreciated.

My fiance and I finally picked up an engagement ring this weekend after almost 2 months without one (odd as it sounds, we got engaged without a ring at all, completely spontaneously). We also said screw it to the 3-month salary BS and got a platinum ring for $589 with the diamond my mother supplied. I'll post pictures once I get home to my camera.

Oh, and congrats Nione!! Did you ever get that door-hanger cat toy I sent you working?

LittleCat
Oct 24, 2004

twinkle, twinkle, little bat

Logical Llama posted:

Abbotsford? 19th?

Anyway, holy crap, that system looks nice and should be further developed as a "invitation card" replacement.

Close enough! He'd prefer I don't share info about the specifics of our wedding on the internet for some crazy reason ;)

Thanks. Yeah, I'm really impressed with what he came up with. It seems a lot easier than print reply cards to me, although I do love getting mail and probably would have enjoyed that part.

JohnnyRnR
May 16, 2004
Beer Ninja

PhillyLucky posted:

I just bought my girlfriend an engagement ring a few weeks ago. The ring itself was 2500 dollars. It seems like a nice ring, but the stone doesnt seem gigantic. She wanted something with numerous diamonds, so I think its a little over 2 carats, but Im assuming alot of the diamonds are in the band itself.

I sell diamonds, and there's no rule of thumb as to what you're supposed to spend. I've seen millionaires buy half carat engagement rings, and I've seen blue collar guys blow half a year's salary on museum quality diamond specimens.

I can't tell you if you bought the right ring, but if you post the specs I'll tell you if it's on par with the American engagement market. Post a picture and the women in the thread can at least tell you if it's pretty. :)

Nione
Jun 3, 2006

Welcome to Trophy Island
Rub my tummy

Sneaky Monkey posted:

Oh, and congrats Nione!! Did you ever get that door-hanger cat toy I sent you working?

Yes, but unfortunately it scared the poo poo out of one cat and the other only wants to try and eat the cord that the mouse hangs from. She was enjoying it immensely, but she has a string-eating thing and I don't need to deal with string poop. So it's been donated to the fiance's mom's cat Emily who loves the thing.

Regarding the name change thing, does anyone have any knowledge about the time limit for doing that? I want to keep my name, but if we ever decide to have children I think it's better for them to have his last name (his dad would be upset if we gave them mine) and in that case I'd want to change it so I have the same last name as my kids. So what I'm looking at is getting married and then possibly changing my name 3 or 4 years later. We're not planning on having children, otherwise I'd just go ahead and change it. Obviously I know that anyone can do the court order thing and get their name changed anytime they want, but I also know there are fewer hoops to jump through for a woman to change her name after a marriage.

And LittleCat, I love the online RSVP thing. If you don't mind I'd like to show your post to my friend so that he has a general idea of what I'm talking about and some place to start. I really like the field for the song request! I'm already forseeing fields for "do you need a hotel" and "would you be interested in X activity" because I've started gathering information about local attractions and lodging and it'd be nice to know what people would want to do. The winery can arrange tours/tastings/etc. for all my guests for the day of or day after the wedding. And they have tigers. And their own lodging with a free shuttle to and from the winery. Also tigers.

LittleCat
Oct 24, 2004

twinkle, twinkle, little bat

Nione posted:

And LittleCat, I love the online RSVP thing. If you don't mind I'd like to show your post to my friend so that he has a general idea of what I'm talking about and some place to start. I really like the field for the song request! I'm already forseeing fields for "do you need a hotel" and "would you be interested in X activity" because I've started gathering information about local attractions and lodging and it'd be nice to know what people would want to do. The winery can arrange tours/tastings/etc. for all my guests for the day of or day after the wedding. And they have tigers. And their own lodging with a free shuttle to and from the winery. Also tigers.

Go for it! And yeah, there are a lot of options we left out for ours - no field for meal choice because we're doing a buffet, and we've got like two out of town guests so we're pretty much letting them handle themselves.

zap actionsdower!
Aug 7, 2004

in favor of festivals
We did an online or phone call RSVP. I built our site in WordPress and used the Wedding RSVP plugin. Pretty easy.

LittleCat
Oct 24, 2004

twinkle, twinkle, little bat
Man there's a wedding RSVP plug in?

That might have saved some time!

Gravitee
Nov 20, 2003

I just put money in the Magic Fingers!
I ponied up the $30 bucks (on sale!) for one of the plug and chug wedding website makers. It has all of that stuff included - online RSVP, lots of pages for hotel information and registry info, directions, and I even put a little bit about each of my attendants. I admit that some of the templates were cheesy, but I found one that I could live with.

Studebaker Hawk
May 22, 2004

While we are talking about wedding webpages- would anyone be able to spare 5 minutes looking at what is certainly no-brainer CSS stuff? I am in front of servers all day and when I get home and start to work on this I seem to hit a mental block. It is a simple wordpress theme that I monkeyed around with a bit, but am getting slammed at work and have to actually start addressing the invites/doing all the other poo poo.

I will check out the wordpress plugin, right now I am using a google docs form which isn't so pretty but will direct all info into a spreadsheet

squirrellypoo
Feb 8, 2003

Nione posted:

How did you do the RSVP on the website? Was it a webpage through a site specializing in wedding pages or did you do your own hosting? Did people have to log on to RSVP or did they just leave a guestbook message saying yes or no or did you have a form or something?
Google Docs is by far the easiest way to achieve this - friends of ours did it for their wedding, both in the attendance and food prefs, but also for requesting songs to be played.

1. Go to Google Docs.
2. Choose New > Form
3. Fill in your questions and answers (click the big "Add a question" button to make more questions)
4. When you're done, hit Save
5. Choose More actions > Embed, and copy/paste that into whatever wedding site or blog you've already got set up.
6. You then see all the responses in spreadsheet format in Google Docs, and you can share it with your partner, or Mother in Law, or whomever else you want and you can all edit it (or not, if you choose that)

It's really, really easy.

LittleCat
Oct 24, 2004

twinkle, twinkle, little bat
Google docs forms are also great ways of collecting contact info, if anyone's on that stage.

teacherkate
Jun 28, 2008
My fiance and I are using a Google Doc right now to set up and initial guest list and keep track of our budget. That way we can both access it anywhere and if either of us updates it we can see the changes immediately.

Nione
Jun 3, 2006

Welcome to Trophy Island
Rub my tummy
Thanks for all the google docs information, guys. I'd heard of it, but never used it before and I think it's going to be really useful.

I know there were a couple of people in here doing their own wedding cake. We're not doing a typical cake, because we aren't really fans of the big giant fondant (ick) covered cake thing, but instead are doing our favorite desserts. I have a friend who is just finishing up her pastry certificate in culinary school and she's going to make tiramisu (my favorite) and then I'm going to make cheesecake (his favorite). Both of these are desserts that get better with refrigeration and are easily made a couple of days ahead of time, so as far as time constraints I think we should be okay. How do you decide, however, how much to make? Do you plan on everyone picking one dessert and having that? Or would you do smaller servings of both and plan on most people having one of each? I definitely don't want to end up with tons of leftover dessert to worry about, but I also don't want to run out. My original thought was 2 large pans of tiramisu and 3 cheesecakes, but I'm just basing that on some form of instinct and not real numbers or portion sizes.

Also, I was going over the catering options with my father and their buffet packages all come with a dessert. They'll remove that and reduce the cost or let us sub in something else, but he got all excited when he heard that the package we were leaning towards came with apple pie, seeing as how he doesn't like cheesecake or tiramisu and apple pie is his favorite thing ever. Plus, he's helping us by paying for stuff and I'd love to give him his favorite dessert as a way of thanking him. So now I'm baking him a pie as well (I make killer apple pie), but there's no way I could do more than the one "dad pie." Is this going to be an issue? How do I make sure that A. dad gets his pie and B. nobody is upset that there were only 6 pieces of pie and they didn't get one. (I say screw the haters, but now my fiance is talking about how great apple pie is and how much his dad and grandfather love my apple pie...)

Sneaky Monkey
Jan 12, 2007

Beware of Hug Ninja. Trespassers will be hugged.

Nione posted:

Pie
You could save the pie for after the ceremony, letting family know that there's a dessert put aside especially for them. None of the guests would have to know, and the family that likes the pie can have a piece.

zap actionsdower!
Aug 7, 2004

in favor of festivals

squirrellypoo posted:

Google Docs is by far the easiest way to achieve this - friends of ours did it for their wedding, both in the attendance and food prefs, but also for requesting songs to be played.

1. Go to Google Docs.
2. Choose New > Form
3. Fill in your questions and answers (click the big "Add a question" button to make more questions)
4. When you're done, hit Save
5. Choose More actions > Embed, and copy/paste that into whatever wedding site or blog you've already got set up.
6. You then see all the responses in spreadsheet format in Google Docs, and you can share it with your partner, or Mother in Law, or whomever else you want and you can all edit it (or not, if you choose that)

It's really, really easy.

Oh poo poo, I wish I would have known this!

There is also another RSVP plugin, whose name I've forgotten, that utilizes a spreadsheet in Google Docs. BUT you have to plan ahead and put an individual code on each invite.


Unrelated: I am a week and a half out and moving steadily toward panic mode. I anticipate much drinking for the next several days. But the good news is that I was able to ditch my crutches on schedule yesterday. I have a heavy limp, but it's better than having external apparatus.

LittleCat
Oct 24, 2004

twinkle, twinkle, little bat
You'll do wonderfully, Zap, don't panic! And no one will care about your limp - just make sure to take it easy so you can enjoy yourself when it really matters. Take plenty of advantage of the fact that people will want to help you out.

I'm two and a half weeks out, and I'm amazed at all the things I still have to do. And I've lost my DJ! We were supposed to meet with him last night to give him our music selections and firm up the plans, but he didn't show up to the meeting. And he's not answering the phone or emails. Strangely, I'm not panicking yet, but there's definitely a little part of my brain going "so, um, what happens if he's just disappeared?" - we haven't given him any money yet, but I'm not sure if I'll have much luck finding a new DJ on two weeks' notice.

edit: and speak of the devil, there's his (extremely apologetic) email. Thank goodness. I can deal with a forgetful DJ, but not a non-existent one.

ih8ualot
May 20, 2004
I like turkey and ham sandwiches
We decided to do our own RSVP system, because I wanted to do something with PHP/mySQL. Users are presented with the following form:


Click here for the full 1063x707 image.


Once they submit, the RSVP is added (unless the RSVP has already been made, in which case my email is given out and they're told to ask me).

Then, for the administrators, they can view this page:

Click here for the full 1064x783 image.


It's awesome :iamafag:

Bodnoirbabe
Apr 30, 2007

This may have been covered about a million pages ago, but I've read through almost this whole thread and didn't find anything (admittedly, I scanned).

Anyhow, I am going to be getting married in October of next year and I was thinking that I would really love to have a handfasting ceremony, except without all the pagan mumbo-jumbo. I would like to it be similar to the unity candle thing, but with handfasting.

Is there anyone here who has seen a modern handfasting ceremony? Did it still have all the pagan crap with calling the corner and Goddess and poo poo? How did it work? Did you think it was corny or cool?

I really really don't want to go with the unity candle thing as it seems so...passe at this point. The unity sand thing is cool, but I think it's more for a beach theme.

To clarify, we are not having some renaissance wedding or even celtic of pagan themed. There will be no one there in fairy wings. It's going to be a classy, classic wedding at a mountain lodge. I just the love the handfasting thing because I am Scottish.

Thanks for your input!

FidgetyRat
Feb 1, 2005

Contemplating the suckiness of people since 1982
You can do just about anything you want. Who says you have to follow a particular paegan ritual to the "T". If you want it one way, do it that way.. It doesn't even have to be something real..

At least in our case, our "pastor" is really a ceremony service and they will pretty much do whatever we want.

Bodnoirbabe
Apr 30, 2007

FidgetyRat posted:

You can do just about anything you want. Who says you have to follow a particular paegan ritual to the "T". If you want it one way, do it that way.. It doesn't even have to be something real..

At least in our case, our "pastor" is really a ceremony service and they will pretty much do whatever we want.

I know I can do anything I want. What I want to know is do people think it will be cheesy or cool? Have people seen it done? What where their thoughts? Was it modern or full of all that pagan crap?

jomiel
Feb 19, 2008

nya

ih8ualot posted:

We decided to do our own RSVP system, because I wanted to do something with PHP/mySQL. Users are presented with the following form
Being a bit picky here, but why do they have to enter in their name and address information when you already know it and sent out their invitation with the secret password on it?


But anyway, the online RSVP system is an awesome idea and thanks to everyone who mentioned/showed it. I'll try out Google docs.

Sneaky Monkey
Jan 12, 2007

Beware of Hug Ninja. Trespassers will be hugged.

Bodnoirbabe posted:

I know I can do anything I want. What I want to know is do people think it will be cheesy or cool? Have people seen it done? What where their thoughts? Was it modern or full of all that pagan crap?

Really, what matters is if YOU think it's cheesy or cool. It's your wedding, your moment. Everyone else is there to enjoy it with you, no matter what you do. That said, unless your family and friends are all super-religious, most people will probably find it sweet or cool to do something different. I've never personally seen one, but I think I'd find it a cool touch.

ih8ualot
May 20, 2004
I like turkey and ham sandwiches

jomiel posted:

Being a bit picky here, but why do they have to enter in their name and address information when you already know it and sent out their invitation with the secret password on it?

That's a good point.

LittleCat
Oct 24, 2004

twinkle, twinkle, little bat

Bodnoirbabe posted:

This may have been covered about a million pages ago, but I've read through almost this whole thread and didn't find anything (admittedly, I scanned).

Anyhow, I am going to be getting married in October of next year and I was thinking that I would really love to have a handfasting ceremony, except without all the pagan mumbo-jumbo. I would like to it be similar to the unity candle thing, but with handfasting.

Is there anyone here who has seen a modern handfasting ceremony? Did it still have all the pagan crap with calling the corner and Goddess and poo poo? How did it work? Did you think it was corny or cool?

I really really don't want to go with the unity candle thing as it seems so...passe at this point. The unity sand thing is cool, but I think it's more for a beach theme.

To clarify, we are not having some renaissance wedding or even celtic of pagan themed. There will be no one there in fairy wings. It's going to be a classy, classic wedding at a mountain lodge. I just the love the handfasting thing because I am Scottish.

Thanks for your input!

I haven't seen it, but I've definitely heard of people doing "modern" takes on handfasting. You don't need to do all the gods and goddesses stuff - just have the person officiating say a few words about the meaning of it. While I was looking up info on unity candles, I saw someone mention that they had their mothers tie their hands together as a symbolic "joining the family" act, which seemed like a really neat idea to me.

Nione
Jun 3, 2006

Welcome to Trophy Island
Rub my tummy

Bodnoirbabe posted:

To clarify, we are not having some renaissance wedding or even celtic of pagan themed. There will be no one there in fairy wings. It's going to be a classy, classic wedding at a mountain lodge. I just the love the handfasting thing because I am Scottish.

Thanks for your input!

I think it's completely up to you. However, since you mentioned being Scottish I wanted to point out that a medieval handfasting was actually a betrothal, not a marriage. There's also no record of hands being tied together in a handfasting; it was only a simple ceremony to acknowledge the betrothal. This was before marriage was really a ceremony at all, and a couple who told each other they were married or who lived together or had children together was considered married by both the church and the state, without any witnesses, priest, or documentation. So people would have a handfasting (referring to a handshake or holding hands during the ceremony), which meant they were legally engaged, and then once they lived together and had sex they were married. It was sometimes much easier to get a marriage annulled than to get out of a betrothal, which was legally binding.

That being said, the whole neopagan idea of a handfasting IS the tying together of hands, and that act taken alone is, in my opinion, a nice symbolic gesture, much akin to a unit candle. Many people do different things, a friend of mine getting married is planting a tulip bulb together with her fiance during the ceremony, my brother and his fiance are drinking from the same glass of wine during the ceremony, some cultures jump over brooms or break glasses. It's a matter of how you want to represent your union in your ceremony and if it means something to you it doesn't matter where it came from. You should do what you want.

I just thought you might be interested in some of the historical context. http://medievalscotland.org/history/handfasting.shtml

amethystbliss
Jan 17, 2006

For anyone looking for a reasonably priced wedding dress or mantilla veil, I've just posted mine for sale in SA Mart. Here's the link!
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3116068

I'm also selling a black dress I wore for my engagement photos in this thread if any of you are looking for something frilly to wear in yours:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3116081

Chokes McGee
Aug 7, 2008

This is Urotsuki.
Yay stupid questions!

My fiancée and I are looking into a bridal/honeymoon registry where people can donate cash, because we'd much rather have a honeymoon or house than a toaster. We'd like to set it up through a bank, but a lot of them only offer returns in the neighborhood of %0.50. We'd like to set it up through a place like FNBO or Dollar Savings, so we can get %1-%1.25.

The problem comes with actually providing a front end to the fund that doesn't insult the poo poo out of guests. Apparently, it's bad form to just have people cut you checks. :monocle: We were originally looking at a web frontend, but we've had some complaints that "older people won't know how to work it" (mostly from said older people, i.e. parents). The only other thing I can think of is setting up a honeymoon fund registry through a travel agency and pocketing the extra.

Does anyone have any advice here, or will we just have to take the lower rate? I know it's probably only a few hundred in difference in the long run, but I'd like that few hundred if we can get it. ;)

amethystbliss
Jan 17, 2006

Chokes McGee posted:

honeymoon registry
There's a pretty cool site called https://www.honeyfund.com and guests can basically print out little certificates that say "Good for one bottle of wine" or something similar and give you the check. The site doesn't handle money in any way so it's easier to use. The older guests could just have someone else print out the certificate for whatever they want to give you and write out a check. I think there's also the option of linking people to your paypal for those internet savy guests who want to use their credit cards or whatever. We're already married but we're having our receptions later, and we'll likely use that site.

I can't really think of a way to ask people to make bank deposits without offending.

LittleCat
Oct 24, 2004

twinkle, twinkle, little bat
We have a "honeymoon fund" on myregistry.com (which just links to my paypal, an iffy idea with paypal fees I guess) but no one has used it. People are far, far more comfortable just giving cheques in my experience.

I imagine they'd be even less into depositing directly into a bank account - I'd be a bit put off by that, personally.

Sneaky Monkey
Jan 12, 2007

Beware of Hug Ninja. Trespassers will be hugged.
The fiance and I are trying to figure out what we want to do about catering. We're planning on our wedding being around 11:30 or noon in the summer, outdoors. Because of this, we're going with a semi-casual to casual ceremony and reception so our guests (and ourselves!) can be comfy. Heavy or hot foods seem like a very bad idea, so we want to go with something light and doesn't require hotplates. One option is an hors d'oeurves only selection. At least one of the caterers we've got menus from offers sandwich buffets, either make-your-own or premade. Are any of these options not okay for a wedding? I don't know what other kinds of foods we could go with, and none of the weddings we've been to have done outdoor food serving.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

Sneaky Monkey posted:

Are any of these options not okay for a wedding? I don't know what other kinds of foods we could go with, and none of the weddings we've been to have done outdoor food serving.

It's your wedding, you can do whatever you want. If you're only serving hors d'oeurves then you should probably make that clear on your invitation so people know to eat beforehand. Most people expect to eat something substantial at a wedding so they usually don't fill up and will probably be hungry if you don't make it clear ahead of time.

I've been to a few and in addition to hors d'oeurves, combinations of these things seem to go over pretty well:
- seafood oriented menus(shrimp cocktail, oyster bar, lobster, sushi rolls) - lots of people are allergic to shellfish and don't like seafood though so make sure to have some other options as well
- barbecue themed food
- fresh seasonal vegetables like asparagus
- cold buffets with carving stations of various types of meat, salads, cold pasta dishes

Plate or platter
Apr 6, 2008
I don't understand the question, and I won't respond to it.

Sneaky Monkey posted:

The fiance and I are trying to figure out what we want to do about catering. We're planning on our wedding being around 11:30 or noon in the summer, outdoors. Because of this, we're going with a semi-casual to casual ceremony and reception so our guests (and ourselves!) can be comfy. Heavy or hot foods seem like a very bad idea, so we want to go with something light and doesn't require hotplates. One option is an hors d'oeurves only selection. At least one of the caterers we've got menus from offers sandwich buffets, either make-your-own or premade. Are any of these options not okay for a wedding? I don't know what other kinds of foods we could go with, and none of the weddings we've been to have done outdoor food serving.

It might seem tacky, but you could do barbecue, which is outdoors-y food. It is messy though. If it is lunch, I don't see a problem with catering sandwiches (maybe with chips and numerous salads -potato, fruit, etc. as sides). Plus, lots of lemonade, tea, and water!

It's your wedding. Do what seems like the most fun to you. I suggest: sundae bar.

Sneaky Monkey
Jan 12, 2007

Beware of Hug Ninja. Trespassers will be hugged.

Plate or platter posted:

It might seem tacky, but you could do barbecue, which is outdoors-y food. It is messy though. If it is lunch, I don't see a problem with catering sandwiches (maybe with chips and numerous salads -potato, fruit, etc. as sides). Plus, lots of lemonade, tea, and water!

It's your wedding. Do what seems like the most fun to you. I suggest: sundae bar.

Since the place we're staying rents us the property for a few days (houses on the site plus the reception area for games/activities/whatever, grills included), we're actually doing a burger and hotdog barbeque for the rehearsal dinner, and I think we're just gonna let whoever is in town join us for it since it shouldn't cost too much.

Sandwichs with chips and salads/veggies sounds nice, refreshing, with stuff everyone would like. I just didn't know if that was a wedding no-no or not.

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Chemmy
Feb 4, 2001

Sneaky Monkey posted:

The fiance and I are trying to figure out what we want to do about catering. We're planning on our wedding being around 11:30 or noon in the summer, outdoors. Because of this, we're going with a semi-casual to casual ceremony and reception so our guests (and ourselves!) can be comfy. Heavy or hot foods seem like a very bad idea, so we want to go with something light and doesn't require hotplates. One option is an hors d'oeurves only selection. At least one of the caterers we've got menus from offers sandwich buffets, either make-your-own or premade. Are any of these options not okay for a wedding? I don't know what other kinds of foods we could go with, and none of the weddings we've been to have done outdoor food serving.

My fiancee's brother did a pig roast for their wedding food and it was awesome. Pulled pork sandwiches, plates of pork, served with potatos and such. Really good meal.

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