Freaking out slightly...

[larussel03]

OK, so I''m making the direction inserts for the invitations and am starting to freak out a little bit about my ceremony and reception locations. My ceremony is about 35-40 minutes away from the reception site (depending on which way you take, one way is a little more complicated and takes 35 mins and the other is simpler and takes longer) it takes FI and I 30 minutes to get from one to the other but we''re very familiar with the area.

What I''m freaking out about is that our guests will have to navigate through Boston to get from our Ceremony site in Roslindale, MA to our reception site in Wilmington, MA. It''s about 15 minutes of following a windy street through boston (that can be confusing if you don''t pay attention) then 15 minutes on route 93.

I''m just getting paranoid that our guests will get lost or something along the way. I''m letting my out of town guests borrow my navigation device, and most of the MA people coming are familiar enough with Boston to get through, but I''m still nervous.

SHould I try to change the ceremony site to a closer, easier to get back to the reception site?? It''s kind of late and I don''t know if we can even find another church to do it but I''m kind of worried now. Our wedding is in November, but FI and I now live in Michigan and we chose our ceremony site because it''s the only Melkite Catholic church in the state, and FI and I are both Melkite Catholic.

Now I wish that I picked a closer reception site to the ceremony site, but they were more expensive closer and I had my heart set on our site since I was in high school and we had our prom there...

 

[MMM]

are you invitations already printed? is it really an option to change the location? maybe you are just stressed out about this, but would it be even MORE stressful to change locations? and i wouldn''t "downgrade" to a less suitable place. it may be a hassle for some on the day of, but within a year no one will remember that they had to drive 30 mins! they will just remember a beautiful ceremony and a great reception!

if you really think you should change locations and its plausible, look around and see if you can find a closer alternative you are happy with... but if not i''m sure it will be fine! i would just make sure you have a very detailed map AND maybe at the bottom of the map put a phone number of a directionally-savvy friend of relative who can be on standby duty to help navigate anyone lost along the way!

 

[Sabine]

Is this the only thing wrong with the location? You could always try to find someone who would be kind enough to do this who is very familiar with the area who is not a member of the BP to be the designated direction giver. You could give out their cell phone number in the directions, and then they could be in charge of helping any who get lost en route.

 

[Cassian]

Sweetpea, i am in the same boat as you. my ceremony and reception sites are about 35 minutes apart from each other, and i was worried that people would either get lost or wouldn''t want to make the drive and plain just not come. but i was in love with both places, so what i did was, find the easiest route on mapquest, printed it out, and then made enough copies of the map and written directions to include them with every invitation.
that way, there were two tools to help them, and much peace of mind for me. if you haven''t already done it, i would suggest it. it works great i did it for my shower directions too and no one had a problem.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Well Wilmington is a pretty town, I wonder what sort of parks etc they have there. You might also consider the lake in Burlington and the one in Wakefield as well. There''s also the Fells in Melrose.

I''ve lived in Boston for the past 4 years and to be honest, I don''t even know where Roslindale is...it''s south, right? What about renting a bus to transfer people from the ceremony site?

 

[zoebartlett]

Date: 8/30/2007 7:12:20 AM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
Well Wilmington is a pretty town, I wonder what sort of parks etc they have there. You might also consider the lake in Burlington and the one in Wakefield as well. There''s also the Fells in Melrose.

I''ve lived in Boston for the past 4 years and to be honest, I don''t even know where Roslindale is...it''s south, right? What about renting a bus to transfer people from the ceremony site?

Isn''t Roslindale near Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury? That''s my guess anyway.

 

[cara]

Renting a bus to drive the 35 min between ceremony and reception is a bad idea UNLESS all the people are staying/live very close to the ceremony site and you are basically providing all the transportation they need.

Otherwise people will want to drive HOME (or to whereever they are staying) from the reception directly, not ride a bus back to the ceremony and then drive home.

i would concentrate on having good maps TO THE CEREMONY in the invitation, and then good maps to the reception at the church to hand out as people leave. Many people will forget their invite and map at home.

Use the simpler, longer route between the two places, have a print out with directions and a section of a good map (so that if they go off-course they know where they are roughly) and hope for the best.

Navigation is part of life! It''ll be OK. I know that the impulse is to worry about every little detail but at some point you do have to trust others to be adults.

 

[Kit]

Are you taking them on Jamaica Way? Storrow? Am trying to think of windy roads...kinda fun!

But seriously, at this point you just need to wash your hands of it. You picked these places for good reasons, and you just need to expect that a few people are going to get turned around/lost/delayed/late. And that''s certainly not the end of the world. They will find their way, as most do...it will be your wedding day and the last thing you''ll be doing is worrying about grown adults finding your reception site. It''ll all be fine! Just be sure to include a phone number for the reception site on your direction handouts, so people can call en route for assistance.

 

[monarch64]

This may sound totally crazy...but what if you had a few "leader" cars to mix in with the other wedding guests and they did sort of a caravan to the reception? You could even print up little signs (I hate to bring this up but sort of like a funeral type deal) to put inside guests'' cars so they all can follow each other? Just brainstorming here for ya...hope this makes some sort of sense!