Breakfast Diva said:
That's a huge production! Looks great. I hope everything goes smoothly and will be interested in hearing how you survived.
Everything went fantastic, and it was kind of fun for us, too. But the kudos really go to the wedding couple and their families, as our responsibilities were pretty minimal -- we are essentially just renting out the use of our lawn, pretty much everything else is up to them.
Sunday morning as I coiled up our power cords and watched everyone taking down the decorations and folding up the chairs and tables, the mother of the bride (or was it the mother of the groom?) said to me, "many hands make for light work." I replied, "You guys are incredible! Mike and Lindsay are so lucky to have the support of such wonderful family and friends!" Really, it was amazing.
The tent rental company came early this morning to take down the tent and haul away the tables and chairs, and except for the photographs, memories, and the comments from our new fans on FB, you'ld never know we'ld just had a large wedding here.
Some things we learned: (a) we need to have our trash hauler empty our dumpsters on Saturday mornings (we think that is the other day of the week that they are in our area) when we do an event like this, in addition to our usual Tuesday schedule; (b) Maybe we can park more cars here than we thought, although for this event, the couple had made arrangements for off-site parking, and rented a van to shuttle drivers to and from their cars; (c) we should probably do some more work on our electrical infrastructure to ensure an adequate power supply (no problems this time, but I can foresee future demands might be greater); (d) anxious moments as it was not until the last minute that the septic service arrived with the porta-potties we had ordered; (e) "there's an app for that" -- I found a free sound meter app for my smartphone that I can use to monitor the sound levels to ensure that we are in compliance with our town ordinances regarding noise; (f) so much depends on the wedding party, how organized they are, and how much they have anticipated the needs of
their guests. This couple set the bar pretty high!
We have another wedding (~101 guests) for this coming Saturday, and it will be interesting to see how that goes, because we were not able to offer them the exclusive rental of the whole property and will have other, non-wedding, guests in some of the cottages. So for this next wedding, the reception will be on the south lawn of our 1780 Farmhouse instead of our front lawn (although the wedding ceremony itself will still be down front).
If you will indulge me, here are a few more pictures:
http://www.pinterest.com/harborfields/harborfields-waterfront-maine-weddings/.
And for your lucky guests!
