party after destination wedding - please let me pick your brains...

Hello hun. I am having a destination wedding as well and cannot wait. We will also have a celebration in the UK once we are back from our minimoon.

We are thinking 3 weeks after the wedding - what are your plans timing wise?

We are going to have a hog roast for the food and try to bring in some Italian elements as well - like ciabatta bread, olives etc. We will have a band, first dance and wedding cake (our package abroad includes a cake plus the reception is in a restaurant so we wont have a first dance there.). But our speeches will be abroad - I may video them or something like that but not decided yet. I will also do a bit of a thank you speech at the UK party to thank everyone for coming.

What are your plans shaping up like?

xx

I don't really have any plans to shape up just rambling thoughts/intentions as the moment. Timing wise we would be looking at about a month after the wedding.

Whereabouts are you getting married?

We are getting married in Sorrento in May 2016. Seems like so far away but I know it will fly past.

How about you?

xx

We got married in Sydney and had our home party 6 weeks after the wedding (4 weeks after getting home from honeymoon). We held it in PIL's barn but got a marquee company to drape the walls and ceiling so it just looked like a marquee. We'd done the whole sit down reception with speeches etc in Australia, so the home party was always going to be one big party. We did have a church blessing for family members who couldn't come to Australia, which I think was at 3pm, followed by champagne and canapés outside the barn. We then told everyone else to arrive "from 5.00" but nothing else had any structure at all.

We hired a mobile bar, a hog roast company and a DJ and just held it like a big party.

We deliberately didn't do speeches or a first dance, mainly because we'd already done them abroad, but partly because we had 250 people, all arriving at different times, so there was no way it would have worked.