Your
Ceremony at the Reichstag
When
choosing a venue it matters not whether you can afford the "Astoria
Room" or the "Zombie Room." What matters is how that room is decorated,
the arrangement of the chairs, and where within the room you and
your bridal party will stand.
Some
venues will tell you just about anything to land your contract,
and so you must be very specific about the details of your
ceremony and its reception. They will show
you how they set up the room, arrange the seating, where you
will stand as bride and groom etc. If you don't like those
arrangements then change them, but you and the venue must agree
to your layout BEFORE YOU SIGN.
Venues
are interested in renting space and selling food. One week
the "Astoria Room" hosts a wedding, the next week it hosts
a baseball card collectors show. It matters not to the venue.
Venues are especially interested in efficiency. After the wedding
ceremony is performed in a given room, the guests are invited
out into the foyer as hired help comes in, rearranges the seats
and brings in tables for the reception. This must be done quickly
and often involves a significant number of staff.
To
defeat this problem, some venues which are hosting both the
ceremony and the reception, set up that room for the reception
only. The ceremony, which takes place before the reception,
is put off to the side of the room as shown above. The bride
and groom and their large bridal party have been placed on
a long, narrow raised platform. This flattened out the bridal
party making it look like a police lineup. They have been placed
directly underneath the low overhang of the tented sealing.
To make matters worse, the bridal party has been placed
against
the bright
light of the late afternoon sun. This condition is known as
backlighting and is murder on photography.
Get
specific about your ceremony and reception room layouts. You
should also ask if you are guaranteed to have the room you
negotiated
for. Some venues will change your location so that they may
accommodate other receptions that will be signing on after
you do. Again, get specific and get your agreement in writing.
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