Wedding Recap: After-Party at the Hotel

Wow...43 posts later, I have reached the end of our day!! This is a pretty bittersweet post.

Our wedding ended at 1:00am on Sunday, May 22nd. The SandCastle staff was really great about packing everything up for us. We took what we could that night, but left most of the stuff there to be picked up the next day.

While the shuttles took our guests back to the hotel, our transportation company provided a limo for Chris and I to take to the hotel with our parents. I have such tired, drunk eyes here!! 

When Chris and I arrived, we first checked into our Bridal Suite before meeting our friends in the hotel lobby bar. The man at the counter asked "Didn't you already check-in?" and I said, "No, this is the first time we are arriving here today!" He shrugged, gave me a key and we went on our way.

When I opened the door to our suite, there was my two cousins, passed out on the pull-out couch!!! The hotel had checked in my AUNT LAURA! She and my cousins got our SUITE!! Haha, we had a good laugh, (but I was secretly worried they were all booked up and wouldn't have a room for us), but went back down to the lobby and explained what had happened. Lucky for us, they put us up in an even BIGGER SUITE for the night, and sent us another bottle of champagne, since one had been waiting for us in the other room.

It didn't really matter much anyway because we litterally walked into our room, put our stuff down and went back down to the bar area in the main lobby.
Meeting up with Mandy!

With Kerry

With Billy

My parents bonded with my new brother in law!

Elizabeth and Eric

With my Jamesy!!

Finally, we call it a night - I think it was something like 3 or 4am at this point - we definitely look exhausted!

And that was our wedding day! Don't worry...I still have a few more posts up my sleeve!

Don't forget to enter my Bridal Hair Clip Giveaway!

Our Hotel pulled through!

The results of Wednesday's Wedding Poll:

Are/Did you doing/do a receiving line? 
Yes:  39%

No: 50%

Haven't Decided: 11%

I'm actually surprised that this went the way it did...I thought the majority would be "yes", with the "no's" slightly behind, but it turned out the opposite. Very interesting...as usual, thanks to all who weighed in!

So remember a few weeks ago when I had an all-out bridal meltdown over our hotel situation? In case you missed it, I had a minor freak-out when I realized our hotel block had filled up but the hotel was completely booked for our night and we still had a TON of out-of-town guests needing to book rooms. When I called other hotels in the area, they were all booked up too because it's the same weekend as Hofstra University's graduation!

Well, La Quinta and I made up the other day. First of all the lady I've been dealing with, Deanna, emailed me to tell me 6 rooms opened up and she added them directly to my block!! She also let me know that there is the potential for 15 rooms to open up on April 21st when they release the other blocks. SCORE! Even if we get half of those rooms added, that's much better than I originally thought. So far..so good.

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On top of that...I started making some phone calls to set up shuttle service for our guests from the hotel to our reception. When we blocked off rooms at La Quinta I was told that the block came with a 14 passenger shuttle that would make one trip to and from the hotel. That wold take care of some of our guests but not all. Now Deanna informed me that since we have over 30 rooms booked, they will provide full transportation for ALL our guests both to and from the hotel and that she'll arrange everything with me two weeks before the wedding once everyone has booked. SWEET!! One less thing I have to take care of and one less thing we have to pay for. So me and La Quinta are back to being BFF's 4LYFE, and shuttle service is D-O-N-E. One more thing off the checklist.

I love you La Quinta!

I usually like posting a favorite find of the week on Friday's. Many of you have probably already seen this amazingly gorgeous wedding video teaser over at First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, then Comes Life. But I just had to share it here today. It seriously makes me cry every single time I watch it. Enjoy, and happy Friday!

Sara & Rob Emotional Teaser from Fiore Films on Vimeo.

Bridal Melt-Down!

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Well, it has finally happened: On Tuesday night I had my very first "WTF?! This is a total disaster" bridal melt-down.  I feel like a true bride now!! (heehee) We have a lot of guests coming from out of town. I was only able to book 21 rooms at our hotel for the moment, but was assured again and again that as soon as all the rooms in our block were booked, we could easily add on more as we needed them. I really wanted all our guests, and us, to be able to stay at one hotel; it just makes things less complicated for the shuttle and out of town bags, etc., so I didn't block off rooms at any other hotel and figured I'll just add on to here as I need them. But curiosity got the better of me over the weekend and I called the hotel to pretend to book a regular room for the night of our wedding. I was told that they were completely booked that night and had nothing to offer me. I then went online and tried to book a room online. Again I was met with the same result. I immediately left a voicemail with Deanna at the hotel and sent her a frantic email as well.

We finally touched base on Tuesday and Deanna confirmed that yes, beyond the rooms left in our block, the hotel was completely booked that night. WTF? I just talked to her last week about needing to add on rooms soon! She couldn't have given me a warning and at least mentioned to me that the hotel was booking up quickly and there weren't many rooms left?!?! Utterly useless.

Sooo all those invitations that went out on Tuesday? You know...with the hotel booking information? Useless to them, and I feel like a complete idiot.

Deanna and I emailed back and forth a few times trying to reach a resolution. I tried my absolute hardest to keep my snarkiness in check, though I'm not sure how well I really did. She said that once the other blocks are released on April 21st, some rooms could easily free up and at that time, she will add them to my block. So until then, I just have to hang tight. Eventually, I realized that I was going to have to start calling some other hotels in the area to block off more rooms for our guests in case we couldn't get any more. And guess what? Every single hotel I called in the area was COMPLETELY BOOKED!! After about the 4th hotel I finally asked them what was going on in the area that weekend because there had to be a reason! It turns out Hofstra University's Graduation is the day after my wedding and the school has reserved rooms at pretty much EVERY HOTEL for parents.

Had I been at home in a private setting, my reaction to this would have played out differently...but I was at work so I remained calm, and had several "inner" freakouts all afternoon: which in retrospect was probably better.

Finally, my knight in shining armor, Louis, from a Hampton Inn & Suites near our venue was able to block off 6 rooms for me with the promise that after April 21st, it is very likely he will have more rooms to add (I know I know...I've heard it before). It wasn't a lot, but it was something. And on the bright side, this was a hotel we had already visited last year and actually really liked.

So I put the new hotel information on our wedding website for our guests and if anyone has trouble getting a room, they will have to contact me and I'll help them as best I can in the next two months. It's very hard to say how many extra rooms we need for that night. Until we start getting rsvp's back we can only speculate.

Worst case scenario, there is a small hotel on our block that has 28 free rooms that night. So, if I need to direct people there temporarily, and then move them over to the other two as rooms free up, then that's what we'll have to do.

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If I could do it all over again, I would have blocked off rooms at the two hotels from the start and put both hotel's information on our invitations.We'd still have 20 rooms at a 2nd place for our guests to call right now. But you know what they say: Hindsight's 20/20 right? It will all work out, we have three hotels working to help us out and everyone will find a place to stay...at least that's what I'm telling myself to go to sleep at night.


Did you have anything like this happen to you that caused a mini panic attack?