What Is A Wedding Weekend?

A wedding weekend is exactly what it sounds like. Wedding celebrations that happen on both weekend days. It could even go as far as including the Friday or Monday to make it a long weekend wedding weekend (say that fast 5 times!)

Why You Should Consider Hosting A Multi-Day Wedding

While at first glance, the reasons for having a wedding that lasts for more than one day might not be super obvious, but there are some great reasons why you should consider having a multi-day wedding!

Out-Of-Town Guests

If you’re having a small wedding and most of your guests are from out of town, a wedding weekend creates a more memorable experience, especially if this is the first time most of your guests are travelling to your wedding location. 

Destination Wedding

If everyone, including yourselves, is traveling to a destination for your wedding, a weekend experience lets you enjoy the best of your location in a short amount of time.

Multiple Guest Lists

If you are an introvert who does better with smaller crowds, multi-day weddings are a great way to invite everyone to celebrate with you, but on diffrent days to keep the guestlist size smaller.

Benefits of Wedding Weekend

When you and/or your guests are travelling to your wedding location, the whole trip feels like a vacation whether you got on a plane or simply drove an hour from home. Vacation vibes are naturally happy and relaxed and fun which will only add to the celebration of your big day.

Vacation vibes also make everyone feel more open. Open to making new friends, and catching up and reconnecting with old friends. The more comfortable all of your guests feel with one another, the better the candid photo.

How to plan a wedding weekend

When it comes to planning a wedding weekend, you can keep things as simple or extra as you want! Just like planning your wedding day itself, there is no wrong way to plan your wedding weekend. 

But with just a little bit of extra planning and thought, you can easily plan an amazing weekend experience for you and your guests.

Pro Tip: If this is giving you heart palpitations, I would highly recommend hiring a wedding planner. 

Wedding Weekend Venues

When planning a longer experience for your wedding, your criteria for choosing a venue can change. A couple of common options are:

Book Out A Venue

If most of your guests are coming in from out of town, or if you are all travelling to a location, renting out an entire location has it’s benefits. Booking out a small hotel, or the onsite cabins helps everyone lean into the celebratory vibes all weekend long.

Backyard Vibes

If your multi-day wedding includes mostly local guests, a popular option is a backyard wedding. The setup can remain or be mostly kept the same overnight, reducing the amount of work needed on the decor side. 

Wedding Weekend Activities For Your Guests

Aside from wedding weekends with different guest lists, planning some low-key events for all your guests helps break the ice and add to the celebratory feel of your weekend.

Welcome Dinner/Drinks

The kick-off party! Typically a welcome dinner/drinks is held the night before the wedding when all your guests arrive at your location. This can range from a full sit-down dinner, casual appies + drinks, a backyard BBQ, etc. The purpose is really for everyone to meet and to share any last-minute information about the weekend. 

Activities/Games

It’s common for there to be games to entertain your guests during cocktail hours, but this doesn’t mean you can’t plan games and/or activities the day before or after your wedding. If you’re having an afternoon/evening ceremony, morning and midday activities help pass the time and encourage your guests to get to know each other better.

Mingle

If you’re all staying at the same location, leave some open time during your wedding weekend for your guests to naturally mingle. With the vacation vibes of wedding weekends, people are naturally more open and easily make friends. Giving space for these connections to happen organically will result in more natural and festive photos.

Example Itinerary For Wedding Weekend

Below is an example of what the itinerary for a wedding weekend could look like. Use it as inspiration to plan your amazing multi-day wedding!

Day Before
4:00 PM - final guests arrive at the mountain cabins your rented out 

6:30 PM - BBQ dinner on the patio/deck

7:00 PM - Photographer arrives

9:00 PM - S’mores by the firepits 

9:30 PM - Photographer wraps

Wedding Day

10:30 AM - Boozy brunch for everyone

12:00 PM - Photographer arrive

12:00 PM - Beer Pong/bean bag toss challenge

3:00 PM - Everyone change

5:00 PM - Ceremony

7:30 PM - Dinner

8:00 PM - Speeches

8:30 PM - Sunset photos

9:00 PM - First Dance

9:15 PM - Dance floor opens

10:00 PM - Photographer wraps

11:00 PM - Fry Bar

Day After

10:30 AM - Boozy Brunch

2:00 PM - Lake time

6:00 PM - Guests depart

Photography For Wedding Weekend

Hiring a photographer for your wedding day would be the priority when it comes to your wedding photography needs, but consider hiring a photographer for a couple of hours on each day of your wedding weekend.

The more your guests see your wedding photographer, the less they will pay attention to the camera and more they will let loose and just enjoy the weekend!

If you’re having different guests join you on different days, I definitely recommend having a photographer there to capture some memories of you with aaaallll of your guests from the entire weekend. 

An easy way to save some $$ on your day is to just invite your photographer to join you for only a couple of hours for the non ceremony day and when most of your guests have already arrived.

Multi-Day Weddings

Who says that your wedding is only one day? Not a single person. So if you’re considering a multi-day wedding and are looking for a photographer who get its, use the button below to get in touch and let’s chat about your wedding!