I'm getting married next summer in a beautiful 17th Century barn on a working farm. The plan (weather permitting!!) is to use one of the farmland fields close to the barn which has a big oak tree in the middle, and have an outdoor ceremony at 3pm for half an hour there. Afterwards, guests will walk to the barn entrance where there will be a small marquee and (again weather permitting!!) open air hay bales seating etc for reception drinks and canopes. Then my idea was to have people enter the farmhouse lawn area (it's literally next to the small entrance marquee and set out fun lawn games as well as a popcorn and lemonade stall or something similar. This will be when the photos would happen too I imagine. Then at around 5.30pm I envisaged people being asked to take a seat in the barn then having the meal ( which is a Posh BBQ buffet which will be situated under a marquee just by the barn entrance). Then speeches at 7pm sort of time, and have the Evening only guests arrive around 7.30pm for a 7.45 cutting of cake & first dance etc. this way we have 8-11.30pm for the evening dancing etc.
All this was sounding scheduled and wonderful until it dawned on me that due to the size of the barn, we would need to turn the barn around ( ie remove most of the round tables and their contents!) in order for the dancefloor to be created!
The reason for having food as late as 5.30pm is that I'm not having an evening buffet, just nibbles ie crisps, sweets, popcorn, etc in the evening and don't want my poor guests starving by 8/9 because they ate at 4pm! But any later and it's barely worth my evening only guests coming as it's going to be a bit out of the way for people to come to only be there for 2hrs or something! Plus we like a boogie and our venue wants music off by 11.15 so means finishing around 11.30pm.
Another idea is to maybe get everyone over onto one side of barn where cut cake but not sure if a cake cutting moment if sufficient time to remove 4-6 round tables and their contents!!!
Can anyone help with what to do to distract guests while we maybe ask the ushers to move the tables. The marquee at entrance to barn is quite small and by 7pm even on a lovely summers day might have got a bit too chilly to ask people to go back outside? Or do you think not? For example, one idea I had was after speeches to go back to the lawn games and have a bride vs groom team game (eg girls vs boys or something) like a hay ale bowling aisle. But would take too long to let everyone have a go and this might really slow down things to the point that when the evening guests arrive at the barn it'll be deserted haha!!
Or do you have any good ideas how to alter my schedule of the day given what I've planned above etc.
Has anyone else had to do anything similar? I can get stressed quite easily so really don't want this big "thing" coming up that I'm stressing about when I should be enjoying my day!! Ha
Thanks so much peeps!
Good luck with all your planning xxx
CommentAuthorWhovianbride
edited
Hey don't want to be a downer, but you can't get married in a field under a tree unless your in Scotland. In England, n.ireland and Wales, you can only get married somewhere with a civil ceremony licence that you have to pay a annual fee, and you can only get one of these for a venue with a floor and roof. So if you want it outside the ceremony will have to take place in a purgerla or the like.
Does the barn have a civil ceremony licence, that you could have it in there?
Does the venue have staff or is it a d.I.y hobby? If their is staff they should do it and know the best way to do it efficiently. As for guests, just give them a break, for 30 mind they can go freshen up, get another drink, go for a fag, etc
Met June 2009 on my Birthday,Met again July 2009 and got
together, May 2010 Moved in,Jan 2011 got pregnant,
August 2011 Got our own place, 2011 Had our Baby Girl,
Dec 2011 Got engaged, July 2015 Getting married! Yay!
CommentAuthorKirstyR386
Our reception is in a barn too and they have a second smaller one across a courtyard that we are using to cut the cake so it gets everyone out of the way while they turn the room round. Hopefully this will be enough time to get it sorted for the evening.
A friend took everyone outside for a big group photo so this could be another idea as it can take a while to get everyone in the right places.
Failing that I have heard one person say they just asked everyone to help out with turning it and made it into a sort of game with a prize for the table cleared first so everyone got a bit competitive and actually had a bit of a laugh doing it. X
CommentAuthorEmily17
We have separate rooms forthe breakfast and reception but the venue is moving everything from one to the other for us :)
Met in 2009
He proposed Jan 2014
Will become Mrs P 7th October 2017
CommentAuthorGlitterfairy
We had the same room for everything. The venue changed it from ceremony to reception in just under two hours, that gave us time to have pics done and a mingle with our guests, then after the meal, they turned it around again very quickly for the dancing.
