 marshalltaylor.ca |
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PLANNING
THE DETAILS REHEARSAL | CEREMONY | RECEPTION | PARTY | PHOTOGRAPHY | ANNOUNCEMENT | RESULTS
REHEARSAL We asked Peter's parents to host and plan the rehearsal dinner so that was one big task taken off our plate. All that left was to show up at the venue and walk through the details that had planned long in advance. - THE RESULTS - It didn't turn out quite that simple. Although we had set a rehearsal time that allowed for traveling during Friday afternoon rush hour, it rained that day and the notorious Toronto traffic was even worse than usual. For Peter, this resulted in his one real disappointment that weekend which was that the anxiety of commuting in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour caused him to completely overlook the fact that this was the night that his and Brandon's families would meet for the very first time. It was only by coincidence that our car pooling arrangements had assigned Brandon to drive his grandparents which allowed him to personally introduce them to Peter's parents. Peter felt sick with remorse that Brandon's father didn't have that luxury, having arrived before their son. Not only that, both of us had been inexcusably oblivious to the fact we hadn't notified Brandon's father that he would be walking up the aisle with his former mother-in-law whom he had not seen since the funeral of Brandon's mother. Then if the rainy weather, late start and mismanaged meeting of the families weren't enough, the actual rehearsal started off started off in pretty much complete chaos. Amid the animated chatter of old and new friends and the excitement of being in a such a novel venue, Peter's attempt to explain the planned processional became all the more difficult when our venue rep, Vijay, started making his own suggestions! However, Peter has become a firm believer in the "bad rehearsal, good wedding" mystique because things then proceeded to take a complete turn - for the better. One of the reasons we left no aspect of the ceremony to chance was because we had assumed that staging a gay wedding meant we would not be able to look for leadership from those who usually offered it to straight fiancés. Another reason for planning the ceremony blocking so meticulously was because we had figured that Vijay's laissez faire attitude over the previous year meant that we were on our own once we got in the church. It was such a relief on the eve of our big day to suddenly be given experienced guidance. Brandon and I looked at each other in amazement as the guy who never seemed to care about details before was now telling the wedding party members to wait for his cue in order that the processional be timed just right! Even the wedding party's distraction during the rehearsal turned out to be a good sign when we realized the reason they were chatting so excitedly was because they were getting along so famously! In the end the rehearsal was invaluable and we're glad we stuck to our guns about doing it even when some of those around us inferred that is was unnecessary. The only thing we might have done differently (besides making proper arrangements for our parents' first meeting!) would been to invite our wedding planner as she also had a few roles to perform during the ceremony. Not having our officiant there, however, was just fine. She had performed ceremonies at that church before and had assured us that just running through the motions with her an hour before the ceremony would be fine. She was right, particularly considering the fact that we had written the blocking right into the ceremony text for her!
CEREMONY DETAILS Confetti – We thought of providing guests with bubbles or flower petals for outside the church but we chose not to bother partly out of respect for the park we were in and partly because they might seem a little feminine. Unity Candles – This symbolic joining of families had been on the top of our list when we first started planning but the small size of the church just didn't make it practical. Music – There was no room in either the budget or the church for live musicians so we played back music on a professional sound system that we rented from a DJ equipment service. (The same system was later used for reception music and for our best man to DJ at the after-party so we definitely got our money's worth!) We were pleasantly surprised to find that not only do music stores have numerous compilations of wedding music but wedding books and web sites have guides for what kind of music should be used for what part of the ceremony. The fact that traditional wedding music is classical just made the ceremony that much more tasteful and elegant. Our selections can be seen in the programme illustration in Print Details. Our solution to finding appropriate processional music for a gay wedding can be found in the SAME-SEX CEREMONIES section.) Pew Ribbons - this was a great little touch to section off the front pews reserved for family and was provided by the woman who supplied the flowers.
RECEPTION The fact that the reception venue provided catering saved us from having to choose a caterer which made things a little simpler. The choice of meal was easy as one of our favourite chicken dishes was coincidently one of the venue's least expensive options. We originally decided we'd have a cake and favours like any other wedding but that we would forego having a head table fearing that it would seem too pretentious for a marriage that wasn't truly legitimate. We asked our friend Robbie to host the evening's activities in order to ensure a smooth flow from cocktails to dinner to the after-party and control the timing and order of speeches. A very common complaint at typical weddings is that the speeches drag on forever so Robbie was to give explicit instructions to limit toasts to three minutes! (Our variation on the traditional order of toasts -as well as on the typical wedding cake - is noted in SAME-SEX CEREMONIES.) Our wedding consultant and the wedding planning resources turned out to be extremely valuable in regards to reception details. Because of them we knew to ask the venue how many servers we would have, whether they had taken alcohol serving courses, how long we should allow for a full course meal for 55, where our guests could wait for the reception in case of rain among many other questions. Budgeting for drinks was a major hassle (as we're sure anyone who's planned a reception well knows) and trying to guess how many drinks and what type of drinks the average person will have over the course of cocktails, dinner and toasts caused more than a few headaches! A big help in this regard was the drink "calculator" found on the Wedding Bells website (see REFERRALS section) but be advised that it utilizes the term "drinks" to mean alcoholic and non-alcoholic (we had to contact the site editor to find this out). Our original plans underwent a few changes before the actual day. We calculated that the wedding cake we planned on buying from Fairy Tales would cost $9 per guest so we decided that the money needed for this and the pumpkin flavoured Godiva truffle favours (as delicious as both would have been) would be better spent on drinks for our guests. A head table, on the other hand, was added to the agenda as one of the many results of our dawning realization that our wedding would be just as "legitimate" as any other. The planned entree also changed after the tasting session proved less than satisfactory. We ended up with an alternative menu that was outstanding but it was a valuable lesson that the tasting process isn't just a frivolous detail! Many receptions will place disposable cameras at each table for guests to snap their own pictures and leave behind for developing. In retrospect it would have provided an enjoyable insight into how other people viewed the evening because we had limited opportunities to spend time with many of them personally. Place cards and table cards provided a nice touch (see Print Details) but we decided to forego the menu cards mostly due to time constraints. We had never planned on tokens like personalized matches and napkins and certainly didn't miss them. Challenges related to the setup of the reception were specific to Black Creek and are covered separately under REFERRALS.
AFTER-PARTY DETAILS Some
of the best memories of our lives are connected with clubbing.
Some of our worst memories are of wedding receptions with
“interactive” DJs cracking inane jokes and playing musical
selections that jumped erratically between “retro” tracks for the
older crowd and Top 40 songs at least two years out of date for the
younger set with a few insipid novelty tunes thrown in for good measure
(does The Chicken Dance ever get played anywhere else?).
But even with our good friends spinning great tracks, we knew
that there was just no way to create the environment we wanted by
setting up a turntable and a couple of rented speakers inside a pioneer
village locale. Therefore we decided to hold the post-dinner bash at a
separate venue that came completely equipped for our needs. And by choosing a downtown location, we would have the added
bonus of being able to ask to the party all those friends and
acquaintances who could not be invited to the reception due to space or
budgetary constraints.
- THE RESULTS - As you can see from the
pictures, people obviously enjoyed themselves! Guests benefited from having the party at a separate venue from the dinner as it permitted people who were ready to head home to do so and it allowed friends who couldn't come to the ceremony to still be able to share our special day with us. However, we needn't have worried about making the event into such a huge party. First, as wonderful as our clubbing memories were, they were only memories by the time of the wedding. By then we were a typical "married" couple, more interested in sharing drinks and stories with friends than with partying non-stop. Second, most of our friends had also reached a stage in life where their idea of a good time out had dropped down a notch in intensity! Thirdly, you just cannot create an environment that caters both to young gay ravers and older straight relatives! Either the latter are going to find the party too loud to converse or the former will find it too slow to be fun.
Our particular circumstances made planning three events in one day very difficult. Black Creek Pioneer Village preferred that we hold the ceremony after the park closed around 4:30 but that wouldn't have left much daylight for photos before the ceremony. In addition, the party's start time had to be moved back to a point where it would likely be too late for a lot of people to want to attend. In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have tried to please everyone. We could have skipped the big party in favour of a group trip out to a club and made the dinner slightly larger and hoped that true friends would understand that a couple can't be expected to invite everyone to a wedding.
PHOTOGRAPHY As mentioned in BUDGET, we chose to save money by having our pictures taken by a friend who is an amateur photographer. We knew we were taking a risk but reduced that risk as much as we could by looking at other wedding photos he had taken and showing him ones we had found on the web that illustrated the style we liked. We insisted on paying him so that any demands we made (such as shooting in black and white as well as colour) would be seen as customer requests rather than one friend taking advantage of another's generosity. Our friend was eager to please as he not only brought an assistant but also shot an astounding 21 rolls of film! The results were pretty much as we expected - some shots didn't turn out well but many more did. Since the unsatisfactory ones were mostly posed shots of the wedding party we didn't mind because we much prefer candid wedding photos. Scanning and posting the photos online was a great way to share our favourites with all our guests and other friends no matter how far away they lived. To top it off, Brandon's aunt and her partner gave us a brass-engraved, cherry wood (!) photo album from the Bombay Company to hold the actual prints. While we had good luck with an amateur photographer we can understand experts' advice not to save money through this route. We have discovered that the wedding photographs will allow us to relive the day for the rest of our lives and it would be a tremendous shame if a friend's inexperience would have denied us this wonderful treasure. And be sure to meet with your photographer before the event to view the site and to discuss the photos you would like to see. We (of course!) made a list of the group photos we would like to have so that there would be less confusion on the actual day. We were spared the difficult decision of digital photography (potentially costly but great for sharing online, posting on web sites and avoiding unnecessary processing costs) over film (great for sharing with family members without computers) since our friend did not have a digital camera. A final word of advice about having friends take photos - make it clear to wedding party that just because he or she is not a professional does not mean that the photography sessions are free-for-alls where anyone can tell him or her what to shoot! Relax and let the photographer decide how to shoot the photos. We had been advised to have the ceremony videotaped and asked a friend to do so. This was a brilliant suggestion because a couple gets so caught up in performing the ceremony that they never have any idea of how their guests saw the event. Watching the tape for the first time after our honeymoon was so emotional it was like getting married all over again!
ANNOUNCEMENT
OVERALL RESULTS While Peter's experience in event planning had taught him to prepare as much as possible it had also shown him that no single person can possibly foresee absolutely everything that might go wrong. Even professionally planned corporate events often have a small glitches pop up at the last minute and weddings are hardly "professional" events - web sites are full of stories of things that went wrong at various people's ceremonies and receptions! So we determined that we would just plan the best we could and accept the fact that we would end up with at least one typical "disaster" such as a dropped cake, forgotten wedding ring or broken-down limo. So no-one was more surprised than us when the day came and went without a single major problem! Sure there were minor variations from the schedule but we knew they were inevitable and the guests were never even aware of them. While we know that part of the success of the day was just pure luck (e.g. the fact that it didn't rain and turn the village roads into mud), we can see now that being thoroughly prepared does make a huge difference. It takes a great amount of time and energy but when the big day arrives you realize it was worth every moment because you only get one shot at your wedding! (Ironically, it also helps when the ceremony is a gay one as most of the wedding day horror stories we've heard about related to the bride. There's no chance of mixed-up hair appointments, ruined make-up or torn wedding dress trains when it's two guys going to the altar!) We also learned that another important way to ensure the success of your day is not to aim to make your wedding "perfect". We could see how many brides and their mothers get so caught up in their planning that they become determined to make their big day more special than anyone else's. It's natural for people to want to make sure their guests think they had the most breathtaking dresses, the most beautiful venue, the most romantic vows, the most unique limousine, the most stunning flowers and the most lavish meals amongst other things. We were prime candidates for getting caught in that trap but knowing that we did not have an unlimited budget we vowed right from the start that our goal would not be to strive for a flawless wedding. Instead we would concentrate on making it the best it could be by means of two principles echoed throughout this section: aiming for quality over quantity and planning the day for our guests, not just for ourselves These strategies turned out to be bang on. We would have been quite happy just to hear that our guests enjoyed themselves but instead, we were bombarded with complements throughout the day. The ceremony, the food and the speeches were singled out the most and we continued to receive praise for the quality of the invitations months after the wedding was over. We couldn't be happier! the grooms | our story | planning | the wedding | guest info | same-sex ceremonies honeymoon | photo album | referrals | tips | guestbook | e-mail | marshalltaylor.ca © 2002 Page last updated December 31, 2008 |
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We
spent several months researching potential after-party venues and it
eventually became apparent that renting a club or bar wouldn’t be
practical on a Saturday night.
You
will find that when you decide to commit to your partner for life you
are so excited that you want the whole world to know! And when we
read the how-to's of wedding announcements in the Emily Post books we
realized just how significant weddings are as social events. We
really liked the prestige that an official public notice would bring to
our wedding but held off initially out of concern for the
price. When we later discovered how inexpensive short
notices were, we placed one in the August 4 edition of the Toronto Star
for our local friends and family as well as in the August 12 Times
Colonist for Brandon's family in Victoria. Ironically, we didn't end up placing a notice in
the local gay bi-weekly because they charged more than the Toronto Star
- the country's biggest newspaper!