Reception Advice | Offbeat Bride

This is Offbeat Bride's archive of Reception Advice posts.

Dancing! Eating! Stuff like that!

Most Recent Posts About Reception Advice

Mr. Toastee helped me prepare a gluten-free tres leches wedding cake for a bride recently. We created a 20'' round cake that was kept safely away from the other gluten-filled cakes at the wedding

"Eating out is always risky." This is one of the first mottoes any newly-diagnosed celiac or gluten intolerant individual is taught, and it is one of the most important mottoes to remember even on your wedding day. Based on my experiences over the years as a gluten-free bride and working within the food industry, I've got few suggestions for both gluten-free brides and brides planning for gluten-free guests.

Gluten-free is NOT the same as wheat-free. Gluten-free, depending on the country you are in, means that it's free of wheat, rye, barley, and oats. I could go into a much longer scientific explanation, but it would probably bore you. It's a medically-based diet in order to prevent dire medical consequences and should not be taken lightly by brides, caterers, or wedding planners attempting to accommodate for guests.

I've rounded up some of my favorite get-away options for offbeat weddings. These suggestions range from the simple and silly to the outrageous and expensive. But all of them would make for great photos ops, if not major WOW factor.

Becca and Adam had a big question when it came to wedding music: "How do we play our favorite love(ish) songs… and not have our parents covering their ears, annoyed?" Their solution? A punk rock dinner playlist and a swingin' rockabilly/80s/oldies dancing playlist.

For our wine we bought eight cases of Trader Joe's Two-Buck Chuck (four cases of chardonnay, two merlot, two cabernet sauvignon), took off the labels, and slapped on our own. So any self-described "wine snobs" at our event wouldn't get uptight. Since we constantly remove labels and stick new ones on for our home-brewed beer, I have a couple quick tips for anyone pulling the ol' switcheroo to save major dollars on the bar.

On my wedding profile, I got a question from one reader who asked "what type of metal did you play that the guests could tolerate all night?" The answer is, well, EVERY TYPE! You have to play all types of metal for those non-metal heads to the pros. We also used our laptop and rented the PA equipment because we could not get a DJ that would cooperate with what we wanted to be played. Here is a list of the main songs we used that night.

Our plan: rather than pay $15 per head for upwards of 160 guests (is it just me, or is the guest count never where I left it?) we’re stretching our $5,000 budget as far as we can by offering a variety of snacky things. Here’s how we’ll pull it off.

"The venue we're looking at allows us to be there for four hours. Is this long enough for a reception?" For the answer to this, we went to our resident wedding planner lady, Ang.

Our wedding playlist was way too long. I'm talking, the reception and dance playlist was 20.2 hours long! So we threw a "Stereo Love Party" and refined the list with the help of our friends.