Throwing a wedding welcome party is timelessly popular among Elegante by Michelle J couples, and it is a brilliant way to ease yourselves and your guests into the swing of the celebrations. For a truly special and memorable experience, there is an art to crafting the perfect welcome event – one which we’ve honed over many years, and are going to share with you now.
Why throw a wedding welcome party?
Your welcome party serves many functions:
- To extend your celebrations, providing a great excuse for extra revelry!
- Allowing you to spend more time with family and friends, especially those you may not see often – a wedding day is sometimes such a wonderful whirlwind that you don’t get as many quality moments with your loved ones
- Helping guests feel at home in your wedding venue, city or country if getting married abroad – travelling a long way to a wedding is much more appealing if there are multiple events to attend
- Providing you with a more informal, relaxed celebration of your marriage outside of the traditions and customs you may incorporate in the wedding day itself
- Calming your pre-wedding jitters – if your wedding day is not the first time you’re seeing everybody, it can take away some of the nerves and apprehension about being ‘centre of attention’
A wedding welcome party is beneficial for both you and your guests, not to mention it’s a lot of fun! Here is our advice to make it stylish, seamless and atmospheric:
Advice for your wedding welcome party:
The Venue
Carefully considering the venue for your wedding welcome party sets the tone for the start of your celebrations. Will you choose to host your pre-wedding event at the same venue (perhaps in a different space) or a different one? Choosing different venues means your wedding location is still a surprise on the day for guests, but also incurs extra hire costs. If you are marrying at a venue with several event spaces or that is also accommodating a large number of your guests, keeping everyone in one place can make logistics easier and has a ‘home from home’ feel.
Popular venue choices for Elegante by Michelle J destination weddings include rooftop bars, hidden courtyards, hillside restaurants and infinity pools. Take a look at Taylor and Matt’s Tuscan ‘white party’ by the pool and romantic vineyard dinner for some inspiration.
CLICK HERE FOR TAYLOR & MATT’S WELCOME PARTY
Your Guestlist
Next is to decide whether you want your wedding welcome party to be for all guests, or a select number. Some couples choose to have informal Friday night dinners for close family, friends and bridal party/groomsmen as applicable, keeping the invitations to a minimum and creating an intimate atmosphere. Others choose to throw a party for all invited guests, with some even allowing a day in between the welcome party and the wedding to allow for full recovery from any sore heads!
Consider also that one more event means one more set of RSVPs to collect and manage*. If you want to avoid this or simply don’t want to ‘lock’ guests into a decision about your welcome party, hosting an informal event with buffet-style food or cooking stations can alleviate any pressure.
The answer to the question of your guest list will depend on your budget and preferences, and this looks different for everyone. Remember there is no pressure to do things a certain way just because you’ve seen it before, your cousin did it, or you think you ‘should’.
*Remember, when you book one of our full wedding planning services (Elegante Primo or Elegante Prive) your pre- and post-wedding events will be curated and delivered by us too – meaning the RSVP stress is taken off your (welcome dinner) plate.
Celebrating in Style
Once you have decided where you’re going to host your wedding welcome party and who to invite, consider how much of your budget you’d like to allocate to this event. Some couples opt for a pared-back design, embrace the decor of a venue’s own restaurant (with some personal touches) or let the natural surroundings speak for themselves. Others like to style each event with a similar ‘wow factor’ to the wedding.
Think about decor such as florals, menus and place cards, as well as costs for the catering and any transport necessary to get people to and from the venue if applicable.
A Cohesive Wedding
Something we always focus on with our couples is ensuring that, no matter the answers to the above queries, the wedding welcome party feels like one part of a continuous flow of events as opposed to a separate celebration. You want your pre-wedding party to feel like the beginning of the excitement, warming guests up for the main event.
We have many a trick up our sleeves to help achieve this, and will design your welcome party bespoke to work in harmony with your wedding day. Take a look at A&A’s Florence wedding, where the welcome party served to really serve up a hearty helping of Italian hospitality and set the tone for the main event.
CLICK HERE FOR A&A’S FLORENCE WEDDING*
*Featured on Smashing The Glass
The Details
The final step is to work out how you will let your guests know about the welcome party. Remember to give out separate information to the relevant parties, detailing where they should be at what time, an idea of what to expect and an indication of the dress code. A great way to do this is to include information in a welcome bag which your guests receive on arrival – we have a whole blog about creating wedding welcome bags to help you with this.
HOW TO CREATE GREAT WEDDING WELCOME BAGS
Curating a wedding welcome party that is a spectacular part of a multi-day wedding celebration is something we love to help our couples with, so whatever you’re envisioning we can bring it to life with our fantastic network of suppliers. Hiring a wedding planner only for your wedding day is doing a disservice to the overall end result, and couples who work with us for the entire event experience less stress, find the process more enjoyable, and are able to be fully present at every stage of their wedding.
Get in touch to get started creating the wedding weekend of dreams.