Wedding Preparations (2)
As a continuation of last month’s column, I am going to write about my preparations for the wedding reception.
In a short span of about 3, 4 weeks, my wife and I must have visited at least 10 different wedding banquet halls and talked to at least 10 different wedding planners. We visited hotels, restaurants, and guest houses. We looked at many things when we visited these places. The general atmosphere, the location, the price, and the service we received were some of the things we considered before making our decision.
First of all, we wanted to find a place with a unique atmosphere. We did not want to have a reception at a typical place. Since hotels were common places to have weddings, restaurants or guest houses would better fit our preferences. The location was definitely important because we were having our ceremony somewhere else. Obviously, we wanted to have it at a place closer to the church.
Our plan was to break even with the total cost of the reception and the monetary gifts we would receive. However, many of our guests were not Japanese, and they did not have the custom of paying 30,000 yen. Thus, for our guests, we decided to set a lower entrance fee instead of asking for the usual congratulatory money, which was double the entrance fee. With a set budget, we were not going to have the most extravagant reception, but we still wanted have a nice one for a good price.
I have a pet peeve, and it is “fake” people. At some of the places we visited, the salesperson was extremely annoying, so it was a quick and easy decision to cross the place off our list. Although my wife did not feel as annoyed as I was with these “fake” wedding planners, we both agreed that it was important to find a good salesperson that seemed genuine and was pleasant to talk to.
In the end, we found a restaurant that fit our criteria almost perfectly. We liked the atmosphere. It was a close walking distance from the church. We got a great deal on the price because the wedding was during Golden Week. And the wedding planner was all that we could ask for in a wedding planner. Although it was stressful and time consuming to choose a place for our reception, we are truly glad that we did not settle for anything less, because it was one of the most memorable days of my life!
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