Change is Afoot

No, not this kind of change, silly! Now that we're finally nailing down the details and making decisions for the big day that is just two weeks away, we've up and changed so many details that we previously thought were set!

Source

Head Table

I never thought we wouldn't have a head table. The head was just...there. Standard. But as I started playing around with our seating charts, I kept on getting stuck. There was no good way to divide people up and have it make sense. I was particularly struggling with who would sit at the table with my parents. Mr. S's parents won't be involved in the wedding (a detail I haven't really focused on, as it's Mr. S's personal business) and he has no siblings; my only sibling, my sister, is my made of honor; I only have one grandparent still with us. So, any other family combination that I could come up with was forever leaving someone else out.

So....I floated the idea to my parents that we would nix the head table. And, to my surprise, they really liked the idea!

Mr. S and I will be seating at a round table with my parents, my sister (MOH) and her boyfriend, Mr. S's best man and my grandfather. Perfect. Another benefit is that our wedding party can be seated with their dates, which I'm sure they will all appreciate!

I've never liked how after the dinner, the head table always seems to be abandoned. In my experience, everyone ends up going and sitting with their dates and friends. Whenever Mr. S is in a wedding, he'll come over to the table I'm at and steal my cake! Meanwhile, the piece of cake placed at the head table for him never gets touched. So not fair.

Bouquet & Garter Toss

Yet another thing I had always planned on doing - the tosses! I've had my garter for months (it's my something blue), and my florist was all prepared to create a toss bouquet for me. But we'll really have so few single people there...and the more we thought about doing it, the less we really wanted to bother with it. I think you also have to read your crowd - some will go crazy about it and fight for the bouquet (so fun!) and others will be forced up there. Let's just say that I don't think there will be any fights over the flower toss at our wedding.

So...the garter will just be for Mr. S and me and the florist is making some sort of arrangement to go on the escort card table in place of making the toss bouquet. Perfect.

Peek-a-Boo

I have been nervous about doing a first look. Remember? I was debating the pro's and cons this summer. This was something that Mr. S really, really wanted. As I start to think about how emotion I will probably be on that day, it's probably better for the both of us that we do it! Our timeline for that day is pretty set in stone, so it won't be an extensive photo shoot first look, but rather a "Hey, how ya doin' good lookin'?" moment. The ceremony starts at 3pm, I'll probably get to the church at 2:30, so we'll meet in a designated spot of a quick hug.

Grand Exit

We were absolutely not going to do a grand exit from the church, where everyone cheers and pelts us with things. Until recently, when Mom and Dad Stiletto requested one thing from us - pictures with them in the sanctuary after the ceremony. Photographically, Mr. S and I prefer more candid pictures vs. formals, so we hadn't arranged for any traditional formal pictures in the church. My parents would beg to differ.

So, we'll exit the church as a part of the recessional and loop around a side door and sneak back in. The rest of our guests will be ushered out of the church around the front steps. Mr. S and I will meet my parents and the photographer in the sanctuary, take a couple of quick pictures and then exit the church as our guests cheer us on.

We will not, however, be giving our guests anything to throw at us. I am incredibly paranoid about having bits of anything stuck in my hair. Just call me a spoil sport! And, photographers tend to not be huge fans of bubbles because they pop on their lenses...so we'll give our photographer and her lenses a break! (also, at the last wedding I attended kept on blowing the bubbles in my face, eww!)

Whew. It definitely feels like it's the 11th hour and we're changing everything around. But, as we're just getting those crucial things submitted to our vendors - timelines, questionaires, head counts - if we're ever going to change things, it's right now.

Did you go in for some last minute changes, or did your early decisions still make sense as you got closer to the day?