E could have been for engagement. David proposed at dawn at a castle, very romantic indeed! 7 months later we had a fabulous engagement party with lots of our family and friends. They are both stories worth sharing but of course I already have and this alphabet series is supposed to be about the wedding, so this E is going to be for Evening Do!

All being well our evening do will start at about 6.30pm. The afternoon events will finish at 6.00pm giving people time to have a relax, feed babies, powder their nose etc

Our current timings are …

6.00pm
Drinks / Refresh / Sort babies

6.30pm
People start to take their seats for dinner

6.45pm
Bride and Groom Entrance to Reception
Music = Johnny Cash – I Walk The Line

7.00pm
Dinner is served

8.30pm
Toasts and Speeches

Father of the Bride

Groom

Best Men!!

9.00pm
Mr and Mrs DJ Henley’s First Dance
Music = Dodgy – One of those Rivers

9.05pm
Bouquet Throw to start disco
Music = U2 – Vertigo

9.45pm
Evening food

11.45pm
Bride and Groom Exit
Music = Primal Scream – Movin’ On Up

12.00am
Carriages

The afternoon will have been outside and in a marquee, for the evening we will move into the village hall where the evening decor will be revealed!!

To signify the end of the daytime celebration I want to drop a net of balloons from the roof of the marquee as this will provide a link from these balloons to the ones used for the evening decoration.

The main decor for the evening will be 3ft spherical helium balloons. I am not really that in to flowers so wanted something else for table centres and decoration. David and I settled on balloons as they are fun and add bright colour to the room which we really wanted. The balloons will be shades of blue and yellow. Each table will have one balloon above it weighted by a jam jar with a tealight. Each child’s seat will also have a balloon attached.

For favours we are giving people small packets of plasticine and ideas cards of things that they might like to make. Place names will be simple cards made special with quotations and photos or memories.
The tables are named after Edward Monkton poems as we are using one of his stories as a reading in the service. They are also fun and colourful which is the look and feel we are trying to achieve.

We want everything to be simple and without fuss but personal. We want people to realise how much it means to us to have them there sharing our day.

The evening do will actually be smaller than the barn dance and afternoon tea as we are only inviting family and close friends to this part of the celebration, because of space and money. With this in mind we are having two sets of speeches. In the afternoon I will be making a speech as will my sister as Chief Bridesmaid and David’s Dad, as Father of the Groom. We willalso have the cutting of the cake in the afternoon. Then in the evening we will have the traditional speeces in the traditional order and our first slow dance as Mr and Mrs!

I am getting so excited about our day! It really is not far away now and things are starting to fall into place.

We are not having a disco in the evening instead we will be playing a playlist of tunes specially selected by us from a laptop. We have been working on the playlist for a while now and are finding it really hard as we are quite limited for time in the evening and there are so many great songs that we want to include. The compilation has a definite Indie/Rock feel to it after dinner and I think it is going to be great. I am set to dance the night away and I know that David is too. Getting the tunes right is very important and is taking us a long time to do. But if we get it right it will make the difference between a good night and a great night!

The evening music will, of course, start with the Bride and Groom’s first dance followed by the throwing of the bouquet to U2’S Vertigo to really get the dancing started! I just can’t wait! I am buzzing with excitement now just thinking about it.

The night will end with the bride and groom leavin under a tunnel of sparklers to Primal Scream’s ‘Moving On Up!’ A great song for a finale to a fairy tale day.

The next instalment of this alphabet challenge will be F for Food and so I will leave this post here with our exit song for you to enjoy.

Perhaps you would like to leave a comment about the best evening do you have been to and what it made it so special for you?