An alternative wedding reception

Having our ‘legal wedding bit’ on a separate day to our big wedding party gave us the flexibility to change up the usual wedding reception and party situ. Around 80 guests were invited to a major 3 day bonanza and then we had an additional 20-30 guests on the Saturday evening from 8pm.

There were a lot of elements from a ‘traditional’ wedding reception it made sense for us to keep, like a meal and dancing, but throwing a ‘party’ rather than a big white wedding allowed us to change it up to suit. You can read the run through of the day here and check out how I decorated the barn and rushed around getting ready whilst everyone else drank cider and Jos was hungover.

Unusual twist number one was planning the entire day around Wales playing Ireland in the 6 Nations. We chose our wedding date and about a week later I realised the rugby would likely be on, and as soon as I found out it was Wales at 2.15 kick off it made perfect sense to start the day with the game. I mean sure, we lost and I didn’t get to watch it with everyone else but Jos, our friends and families got to enjoy the game in the bar of Rosedew Farm with free cider and lots of snacks we’d grabbed at Tesco the week before. I hear the cheese straws went down a treat.

I bought mini Welsh and Irish flags for everyone to cheer on their respective teams and adorned the bar. The game was shown on the big screen and as far as I am aware, my brother and dad acted as bodyguards, terrified at my instruction to not let people into the main bar whilst the game was on in case they ‘messed things up’. Vale Cider bottle openers of course were rife, along with an array of paper straws in pots and an assortment of bar snacks - minus the nuts because I have allergies and ruin lives. I saved up my Tesco clubcard vouchers for a year and we cashed them in the week before the wedding to buy the snacks and the provisions for the accommodation, saving us a sweet £100.

We wanted to avoid as much attention on us as possible, in a party literally all about us, but our photographer Simon said that whilst it was a relaxed, fun weekend, some structure helps guests understand we’ve moved from one part of the party to the other. In the end actually, the three bits we did traditionally were some of my fav bits so I am so glad we took his advice.

After an hour of running around outside in the cold, we started with ‘the grand entrance’ when everyone was seated ready for their meals. I roped my Uncle in very last minute to announce us, a job he was made for and he was well placed, his table being right in the middle of the room by the door. Jos powered through the crowds but I really enjoyed walking in and everyone clapping and cheering and a million smiling faces of all our nearest and dearest.

I barely ate a scrap, as did my father so I wonder if you can work out who were doing speeches when everyone else managed to clear their plates. Jos even ate the popcorn favours we had - I don’t even remember where mine went. We wanted hearty, hot food so we chose steak and ale pie, mash, veggies and gravy from Farmers Pantry and by all accounts it was divine - I certainly remember it being delish when we had our taster back in December. Tradition number two then was the speeches, which we decided to do untraditionally after all.

Jos didn’t want to make speech, public speaking not being either of our fav things but I felt we should say a big thank you to our guests and I was happy to do so, so given we didn’t have a best man, I kicked it off myself, followed by my very nervous Dad. My speech was short and sweet and I can barely remember doing it, let alone having the photographer running here there and everywhere and then it was my Dad’s turn. My Dad is a cracking speech and poem writer, having done it for countless other people, including other grooms so I never had any doubt it would be a good one, the photos proving we all had a good laugh (mainly at Jos’ expense).

The third tradition was the one I was absolutely sure we weren’t going to do - until it made sense to do it. Jos loves dancing after a drink and I don’t mind a dance when everyone else is drunk, so the idea of doing a first dance when everyone was looking at us was my idea of hell, but actually it worked out ok. Simon, our photographer said a first dance would show everyone the formal ish bit of the sit down meal was over and the party had really begun and actually that’s exactly how it worked out.

I chose Tom Walker’s ‘Just You & I’ as the first dance because it wasn’t too slow and we danced by ourselves and actually, if I didn’t look up I’d never have really known nearly 100 people were watching us. We’d already roped in some fabulous friends who' I’d made promise would join us after the first chorus and I signalled to my Mum and my brother and they brought the kids onto the dance floor too so the part that was only us was over in a flash. What I would recommend though is having a belter of a second and third song to get everyone up and dancing so we went for Elton’s ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ followed by the Scissor Sisters ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing’ and they worked a treat.

The rest of the evening went by in a blur - one thing I intend to do whilst it’s still in my head is write a timeline of what happened when so I can always remember because already, the hours are fading into one mash of an evening and I struggled to think if the sparklers were before or after evening guests arrived. I danced with my nieces and my Mum and brother for an hour or so. in between mingling with my biggest niece on my hip and when they left, we roped in a load of friends to take photos outside in the cold with sparklers.

By the time the evening guests arrived, more food was handed out (pulled pork rolls, and no, I didn’t eat those either) and we spent hours dancing, mingling, sitting down for a rest and hugging everyone and we barely saw each other, just passing ships in the night. We didn’t want to fork out for a dj or a band so I got the Spotify Premium free trial and downloaded a playlist of classic party songs and we just hooked it up to the speakers at the venue and it worked a treat. Full details on the playlist coming later in the month!

I’d say the party element of the wedding was the easiest most stress free bit of it all - people are drunk by then, ready to have a good time and happy with a bit of food, plenty of booze and some good music to dance to. I also found people just did their own thing and that worked really well with our vibe so some people left early, some kids stayed up late, some people danced, some people chatted, and some people tried to do the dirty dancing lift and nearly broke their arm. By 1am half the group were knackered, half the group were chanting for an encore when the lights went up and the playlist stopped, and my brother had put himself to bed 2 hours earlier.

Sign of a good night.