Friday's child is loving and giving...

I generally don't put too much thought into the days of the week; other than counting how many are left until the weekend. However, after learning that our beloved venue has a minimum food spend of 5000.00 on saturdays and 4000.00 on sundays, you can bet I started giving more thought to the days of the week.

I've always felt that the optimal day for throwing big bashes is saturday. No rushing home from work to get ready before going out or having people over; a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep the morning of; plenty of time to prepare for the evenings festivities, and a whole day dedicated to recovery following the big event.

Thus, when planning our wedding, I was naturally inclined to choosing a SATURDAY. No need for guests to take an extra day off. Lots of time to prepare the venue. Rehearsal dinners on friday, and a full day of recovery on sunday (or a very hung over flight home).

Unfortunately, most brides tend to agree. Thus the idea of "minimum spends" was born. If your big bash can't step up to the plate, someone else (with a bigger bank account and a larger guestlist) is gonna steal your date!

Although 5000.00 seems like alot of money, if one has 100 guests, it's actually not a difficult number to meet. Even with 80 guests it's doable. But anything less and it starts to get dicey. And since 75% of our guest list is from out of town, it's hard to know how many will actually be able to come. I really hate the idea of adding random guests to our list just so we can make that minimum spend. And so it looks as though we'll be holding our big event on a friday night instead.

We'll most likely have the ceremony at 6pm, with a cocktail hour immeadiately following. Dinner at 7:30-8:00ish and reception from 9:30pm to 1:00am. Sounds reasonable right?

I really only have two concerns:

1. The timing might be a bit tight for those guests that are in town and working. Some might take the afternoon off but not everyone can afford that luxury. Plus it may coincide with "rush hour". Of course, Vancouver doesn't really know the meaning of "rush hour" but traffic is traffic, and nobody likes getting caught up in it!

2. Out of town guests will need to take at least one day off of work if not two. Although the wedding will be friday evening, I am guessing that some guests will want to fly in on the thursday instead of the friday morning. Again, not everyone has the luxury. Of course, since the wedding is friday night, those same guests have two whole days AFTER the wedding to enjoy all that vancouver has to offer.

In the end, it seems as though Friday is really our best option. We could go with a Sunday I suppose, as we'll most likely meet the 4000.00 minimum food spend. But I'm worried that people will leave early so they're ready for work or their flight the next morning. And those that are out of town will still have to take the Monday off work anyways. And friday nights just seem more glamourous and party like! Friday it is.

I realize the following poem is about the day of the week that a child is born on, but really now, why couldn't it be about the day of the week that two "children" decide to get married on? I mean, it says right there that Friday's child is loving and giving. Seems pretty fitting to me :)

Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

I also discovered that I was actually born on a Friday. Coincidence? I think NOT! Then again, Patrick was born on a tuesday. Hmmmm. Oh wait, his parents were married on a friday! Yet another good reason for us to get married on a friday :)

What do y'all think? Friday work for you?