We love a good dual location wedding day!
Having your ceremony in your church home, or any location that you love, and then switching to a different venue for the reception is one of our favorite types of wedding days to coordinate. While it is so fun and beautiful, there are LOTS of added logistics to your day so we thought we would help you plan through a few of them!
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Added Logistics to Consider for the Bridal Party
Getting Ready
Typically when your ceremony is at a church location, they only let us in about 2 hours beforehand. This means we usually have to get ready at a different location. If we can make that the reception venue, that is probably my number one recommendation. Then all of your belongings will already be there and there will be no movement of clothes, bags, etc after the ceremony. We typically recommend that our brides and bridal party get completely ready at location one and then only have to move themselves to the venue.
Transportation
We always recommend adding some type of transportation for anyone getting ready together to the ceremony and back. This causes less stress as everyone travels together and there is no worry about people being late or caught in traffic on either trip. You would be surprised how many times I have had a mom or groomsmen “stop to check in on their dog” while we are attempting to get people to the ceremony location without a mass transportation option. This also helps all bridal party to return to the reception venue together to get our introductions rolling and the party started!
Personal Items
We recommend leaving any unnecessary personal items behind. The less we transfer the better. We have a details box that will include vows, marriage license, rings, etc that we transfer over to the ceremony space. If you don’t have a planner, I recommend making this a MOH job. We also like to make a little touchup kit for the bride and bridal party that we keep in there with your lipsticks and powder in case of any mishaps on the ride over, but other than that we love to keep it simple!
Added Logistics to Consider for your Vendors
Planner
I cannot tell you how beneficial it is to at least have a coordinator on your wedding day if you will be getting married and having your reception in 2 different locations! We always have 2 coordinators on site for a split wedding location. One coordinator helps with moving over items for the ceremony location, like: your guest book, welcome table items, card box, etc. They also help with things like getting the bride inside without the groom seeing her and directing family as they arrive for pre ceremony photos.
Our other coordinator will stay at the reception location to ensure all the vendors arrive and set up correctly on location.
Florist
When we have a split location wedding day, we always ask the florist to drop all personal florals at the ceremony location. This allows us to prep all bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages on site. This leaves your flowers looking the freshest and little room for destruction of the delicate boutonnieres and corsages.
Then we ask them to come set the reception location so everything will be ready to go when you arrive back to the reception space!
Photographer
It is so important when planning with your photographer to remember that their photo time must be contiguous. Meaning, if you have them come in to start shooting with finalizing makeup shots, lounging in robes with your girls and then getting into your dress at noon before we head for a 2:00 ceremony, their time officially starts then!
As most photography packages run somewhere between 6-9 hours, that means your photo timeline ends at 6:00, right when your reception has really just started! I have so many brides that don’t realize just how much time the movement between locations takes and this needs to be communicated and planned very well with your photographer from the start! We don’t want to miss any pictures you want, so we need to be conscious of start and end times.
Ask Your Vendors for Help + Advice
Dual Location Wedding Days are Magical!
Having your reception at a different place gives added set up time to vendors and allows you to walk into your reception space and soak in all the beauty that we designed together, without having the stress of watching it all unfold throughout the day. Yes, there are added logistics, but it is completely doable! You just need to plan ahead with vendors and your VIP’s. Ask your vendors for their recommendations on how to make the day as seamless as possible and set those plans into place in advance!
