Run Your 2023 Wedding Reception With Less Stress

The vows have been said, you’ve shared that life-changing kiss, and someone in the third row was smart enough to bring tissues for everyone. Next comes the reception - and if you’ve planned accordingly, this can be where the fun kicks up a gear.

The reception should be where you and the rest of your wedding party heave a sigh of relief - the hard part is over! Let the music play and the drinks flow! But you’ll only be able to really enjoy this party if you know that the inner workings are running like a well-oiled machine. Here are some tips for ensuring that you have complete peace of mind by the time you hit the dance floor. 

Timing is everything

This goes for the whole wedding, but it truly cannot be repeated enough, and holds special significance for the reception. The reception is where you can potentially lose track of your guests, especially if there is a change in venue involved. That is why it is incredibly important to leave plenty of time between the different reception elements. Reasons you may need to incorporate buffer time into your reception include:

• If guests need to travel from your wedding venue to your reception venue, expect at least a few people to get lost or delayed
• Assume there will be some sort of hold-up in the food being served, whether it’s a traditional sit-down meal or more relaxed food trucks
• Gathering everyone for speeches, cake-cutting, the first dance, or other performances, especially if your reception venue is large
• Photoshoots with the extended bridal party and/or family can be laborious in the hands of the wrong photographer, particularly when children are involved

By adding extra time into your schedule for worst-case scenarios, you also have the potential for everything to run smoothly and leave yourself with extra time for dancing!

Use checklists

Checklists are a straightforward way and a vital visual aid to keep track of what has been done and what needs to be done. You can use checklists throughout the entirety of your wedding planning, from lists of things to buy to vendors to contact, but they are especially useful for your reception - as more often than not they will be in the hands of someone else. Even the most vital things can still slip people’s minds - a checklist prevents this from happening.

Checklists aren’t only useful for remembering to carry out certain tasks - they’re also good for reminding people which order they need to be carried out in. Think of your reception as a countdown to an aircraft taking flight, with the “lift off” being when the party kicks in and there’s nothing else left for you to worry about. Similarly to a pilot checking things off as they’re done, you should know what’s just happened, what’s supposed to happen next, and when.

Make a checklist for the events of the reception and make sure everyone in the bridal party has a copy. This leads us nicely into our next point…

Delegate as much as you can

Whether you’ve had a professional wedding planner at your side for the entire process, or called on the help of family and friends, it’s important to be able to trust other people with carrying out tasks on your behalf. For the control freaks among us this is often incredibly difficult, but a good thing to practice!

Pick designated correspondents from the bridal party for the various vendors on the day. If your meal has a seating arrangement, make sure you’ve tasked someone with letting everyone know where they need to go. Have someone who’s good with names help your photographer to corral the people they need for each photo. Each task you offload is a little weight off of your mind.

Not only does delegating mean you’re more able to enjoy yourself on your big day, but giving someone a role in your wedding, no matter how small, is a way of letting them know you value their presence there and want them to be involved. Everybody wins!

Recycle flowers by gifting or donating

The clean-up after the wedding can weigh on your mind, especially if there are fees involved. You and the rest of your bridal party might find yourselves tempted to start tidying before the reception is even over, in hopes of making the job easier the next morning. Another anxiety factor may be the amount of waste you’re left with at the end of your wedding, with uneaten food and single-use decorations destined for the trash as soon as the day is done. No one wants these worries dampening their reception.

Unfortunately wedding flowers often suffer the same fate. Aside from bouquets and buttonholes which are often kept and preserved, the rest of the floral wedding decor often finds itself unused after the event. Flowers for weddings are cut and prepped to be at their most full and beautiful the day of the wedding, meaning that their remaining lifespan is often overlooked and they are simply discarded. But there are other options! 

Donate to a good cause

Flowers are used to make a space more beautiful and spread joy to those who see them; there are many places that could benefit from beautiful blooms to brighten them. Retirement homes, care homes, homeless shelters and community centers might all be grateful for some donated decor. There are businesses dedicated to taking and redistributing wedding flowers to those in need, so consider contacting one ahead of your wedding.

Gift your guests

It may take a little extra planning, and someone who is flower-savvy on hand during the wedding, but with a little creativity your wedding flowers can be disassembled and turned into wedding favors for your guests to take home with them. They can be beautiful thank you flowers, showing your appreciation to your guests for attending your wedding, while also giving them a part of your wedding to take home as a keepsake.

Preserve the memories

Pressing, drying, and preserving are all options for your wedding flowers that will leave you with a beautiful memento, to decorate your home and remind you of your special day. If you’ve opted for preserved roses as decorative flowers for your wedding, then this job will already have been done for you, and you can enjoy them for years to come.

If finding a florist is still on your checklist

We love to prepare beautiful floral moments for any and all occasions, and our team will put their experience into any luxury arrangements you might need for your special day. Order flowers from French Florist by 2pm for same-day local delivery across Los Angeles.