We had no intention of having a morning wedding. David and I define a good party by how much we get to dance (and drink) and I’d always figured that you get to dance and drink more at night. Done. Or, not really done, actually. When we first looked at our venue, we had one of those moments of revelation. I walked in and I turned to David (who wasn’t even inside the venue yet, poor thing) and said, “This place is for me. This is our place. We’re getting married here.” And when you know, you know. The thing is, our venue happens to be one of the most beautiful in the bay area, and staggeringly affordable (ONLY for the bay area) since it’s run by Parks and Rec. So, it books up a year and a half in advance. And even though we booked it a year and a half in advance, Saturday evenings were already gone. So, Sunday morning it was. Good for religious reasons,* but I was dubious.
Fast forward a year and a half, and I won’t have done it any other way. Here is the scoop:
Cons:
- People always talk about how much money you will save having a Sunday morning wedding. Maybe. But we didn’t. First of all, we didn’t have a ton of vendors, and, um, the flower mart and ipod did not give us a discount for getting married on Sunday. Our amazing photographers flew in from Seattle for the weekend to shoot our wedding, so no discount (other than the fact that they totally undercharged us for their talent). Second, we had a Jewish wedding. Jewish weddings are almost always on Sundays. Our caterer was Jewish, and she could have booked 10 weddings that day. No discount. (Note to vendors: if you’re complaining that you can’t book Sundays, you need to be advertising in Jewish publications or hanging out with more Jews.)
- You have to get up EARLY. I’m not going to lie to you. We were up at 6. I wake up at 5 on most mornings, so I joked that I got to sleep in, but yeah. Early.
- You’re pre-wedding morning will be rushed, there is no way around that. The good thing about that is that a lot of the things you have to do pre-wedding are not that fun… like say, taking group pictures. So you have an excuse to rush through them. Excellent.
Pros:
- The light, the light, the light. If you’re getting married in a beautiful place, or outdoors, the morning light is unbeatable, and you’ll be able to see your surroundings for the whole party. We had sweeping mountains behind us, and trees around us, and it would have been a shame to waste that on the night.
- You know how people say, “Oh, but no one will dance and drink at a morning wedding”? This is a lie. If you dance and drink, everyone else will dance and drink too. (though David pointed out if that IS true for you, you’ll save money on drinks. Excellent.)
- Afterwards. The strange thing is that when people voice concern about morning weddings, they normally ask you, “Well, what did you do afterwards?” Here is the scoop. Afterwards is *the best part.* We drove away from our venue, waving like crazy, at 2:45 pm. You know what we did? We went back to the hotel room we’d splurged on. We lounged around. We talked about the wedding. We giggled. We looked at our wedding rings. We blissed out. We went shopping at a used bookstore and bought books for our honeymoon flight. We went out to a really nice dinner, and I wore my wedding hair flower. We drank mojitos. We went to sleep. We woke up not-hung over. The after-the-wedding is the best part of getting married in the morning. Think about it this way: you’re marring your partner because you like spending time with them. Morning weddings give you lots of time to hang out together, married, on your wedding day. And then you wake up sober and happy. What could feel better than that?
So, are morning weddings better than evening weddings? No. Evening weddings are fantastic too. But morning weddings are the unsung heroes of the wedding world. People tell you they are only worth it for the discounts, and I’m telling you that we got no discounts and we would do it again in a heartbeat.
Picture: The mimosa bar at our wedding, which I never saw. Shot by our talented friend Gabby on expired Polaroid film. Nice.
*Jewish weddings traditionally take place late on Saturday night or on Sunday. In Judaism you are not supposed to mix blessings, because when blessings are mixed you enjoy them less. So since Shabbat is a blessing and a wedding is a blessing, weddings are not supposed to take place on Shabbat (Friday sundown – Saturday sundown). This sounds silly, but the day of rest mandated before your wedding day, actually is a enormous blessing.
