Hello there lovely readers! Welcome to another installment of Wedding Wednesday. Since I was a mess last night and didn’t bother have time to queue this one up, you’re going to be reading it a bit later than usual – sorry about that!
One of the issues that I’ve struggled with a bit in this wedding planning endeavor is the issue of transportation (but don’t even get me started on how hard it’s been to find invitations I like!!); specifically, how to get my wedding party from point A to point B. Our ceremony is being held about 20 minutes away from our reception venue, but everyone will be staying at the reception venue the evening before and getting ready all together in the morning. I also took into consideration how to get my parents, my fiance’s parents, and both sets of grandparents to and from the locations. Parents are an obvious one, but sometimes grandparents aren’t really considered in the transportation logistics – but in our case, since none of our grandparents drive, I wanted to have them included.
We’ve been working with a really great limo company here in Rhode Island, and they’ve been so, so helpful in recommending the number and size of the vehicles we should be using. Ultimately, we decided on three stretch limos, with the following arrangements:
- Limo #1, 8-10 person limo: Will transport myself (the bride) and my father to church, and then transport myself and my future hubs to the reception
- Limo #2, 12-14 person limo: Will transport the groomsmen, my future hubs, and any grandparents that want to get there early (so probably none). This limo will be the first to leave, since the groomsmen will need to be at the wedding venue a bit early to act as ushers. The ring bearer will also be in this limo since his dad is a groomsman, and I know that he’ll like spending time with the guys! My future husband’s parents may also be in this limo, since I think they’ll want some time with their son before everything gets hectic, and they’ll be able to have that at the church before the ceremony begins.
- Limo #3, 12-14 person limo: Will transport the bridesmaids, my mother, and most likely all of the grandparent.
On the return trip my future husband and I will be in the 8-10 person limo, and then the bridesmaids/groomsmen, parents, and grandparents can just jump in whichever limo they want to be in to get back to the reception venue once we’re finished with photos at the church.
I know it all looks very logical and simple, but it was something I kind of struggled with since there were so many different options for the size of limos, and the arrangement. Initially I was planning to do one 8-10 person limo for my father and myself and then my future husband and myself, and then do a stretch SUV (22-24 people) to transport the groomsmen to the church, then come back , pick up the bridesmaids and everyone else, etc. That would have been a bit less expensive than the option we ended up deciding on, but the limo company advised us that it might not be the most comfortable option since people may feel squished – especially since the bridesmaids and moms will be trying desperately to not get their gowns wrinkled!
Since 80% of the guests at our wedding are local (as in, they live in the town the church is in!) we decided we didn’t need to do any sort of trolley or bus to also get our guests from the ceremony to the reception site and back again.