What the Wedding Will Look Like

So now that we had a theme for the wedding, it was time to start considering what the wedding would look like.

I drew an x-axis on a sheet of paper and marked the halfway point, labeled one end "formal" and one end "casual" and asked Mr. Potion where along the spectrum he thought our wedding should fall.

When I was a little girl, I had always pictured your typical lavish ballroom wedding with a 5-course plated dinner, lots of candles, a full orchestra, and white roses everywhere.  I'll spare you a rant on the Wedding Industrial Complex because there are plenty of other bloggers who have done so more eloquently than I ever could, but suffice it to say that I bought into it big time.  By the time I hit college, started dating Mr. Potion, and began daydreaming about what would one day be a REAL wedding in my pre-engaged state (oh yes, I was one of those girls) I realized the ballroom wedding reception seemed less and less practical or, well, fun.  Perhaps it's because I'd discovered Offbeat Bride and, of course, the Weddingbee and was reading posts from REAL brides planning REAL weddings, but before Mr. Potion even popped the question I had started envisioning descriptions like "rustic" more so than "regal"- though princesses were (and are) still influencing my image of a bridal look.  So by the time Mr. Potion and I sat down to start honest-to-goodness planning our real wedding, my mental marker for our wedding was placed just to the "formal" side of neutral on our formal-casual axis- it is a wedding, after all.

The more we talked about it, however, the more Mr. Potion and I realized our vision for our wedding day felt a little more casual than I'd originally thought.  We pictured things like

cupcakes instead of a cake

photo by Lara Porzak // event by Yifat Oren & Associates // image via Martha Stewart Weddings

 bridesmaids carrying only baby's breath

photo by James Bass // event by Sweet Occasions Studio // image via Sweet Occasions Studio

bow ties, suspenders, and suits for the boys

photo by Adele Cabanillas // event by An Inspired Event // image via Style Me Pretty

 
a candy buffet in lieu of favors

candy buffet by Amy Atlas // photo by Gemma Comas Photography

 and stacks of books instead of flowers as centerpieces

photo by Jeff Wallace // event by Jesi Haack Design // image via The Sweetest Occasion

 And Hive, I'm going to be honest with you- our budget kind of played a role here, too.  We hadn't discussed an exact number yet, but we knew it would be nowhere near the national average of $27,000- not even half.  Less expensive wedding receptions generally mean less traditional wedding times.

An early afternoon wedding sounded like a good idea.  It would mean that the reception would take place well before dinner time, and we could skip the giant, expensive meal.  What's more, when people are eating a giant, expensive meal, they are less likely to be up and dancing- which is what we want people to spend the majority of our wedding doing.  Finger foods, cupcakes, and daytime teamed up to nudge our marker over the neutral line on the axis, resulting in this:

check out my Paint skillz, yo!

On what side of the spectrum does/did your wedding fall- formal or casual?