I truly can't say enough good things about our wedding reception venue, the Wyndham Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel. We went with the very classic "afternoon church wedding ceremony, evening hotel ballroom reception" combo for our wedding day. I think there is something so timeless and wonderful about a hotel ballroom wedding reception, and it really is easy from a planning perspective as well (since the linens, tableware and food and beverage is usually done all in-house).
The Wyndham was not only an incredible value (and significantly cheaper than other comparable hotels located nearby), but the timeless elegance of the ballroom in its natural state, and the delicious catering for our meals made it just an excellent choice all around. I knew that we wouldn't have a huge budget for wedding florals and other decorations, so it was very important to me to find a reception venue that was already elegant and nice to look at, without many added decorations or up-charges. I think we found that with the Wyndham! Their ballroom was large and recently renovated, and I loved the chandeliers in both the ballroom itself at the cocktail hour hallway space right outside of it. The staff was also phenomenal, from the events manager all the way down to the waitstaff.
I plan to write another Wedding Wednesday post at some point about large cost-savings measures that we took for the wedding, but a large one was not renting chairs, linens or dinnerware. We opted to use all of the ones included at the Wyndham, and we saved thousands! Were these my dream reception chairs? No. Would I have loved to do elaborate tablescapes with colorful linens and unique dishes? Absolutely. But I still think the basic items included with our package came together beautifully, and looked so classy! We saved thousands of dollars, and still had tables and a ballroom that looked nice.
Our reception flowed pretty traditionally. Ryan and I made it to the last 15-20 minutes of the cocktail hour after we finished photos. The cocktail hour was held in the large and open hallway that's just outside of the ballroom. It looked wonderful, and I was so pleased with the vibe of it when we got there! We also got to have a sneak peak of the ballroom before guests were let in, and you can see those photos below. The DJ then did the formal introductions for our parents, the wedding party, and us! We went right into the first dance, and then had the father / daughter dance and the mother / son dance. Something during the father / daughter dance that was very speical yet spontaenous is that I invited my two uncles (my dad's older brothers) to join us for the final part of the dance. They were all so touched by that! Next up were speeches. We had several: each of my parents spoke / toasted, my matron-of-honor Caroline spoke, followed by Ryan's best man Nathan. I then gave a brief speech and thank you to my parents and a couple friends who helped with the wedding, and then the pastor said a blessing before dinner.
We served a plated dinner with three choices of entrees (beef, seafood or vegetarian). Ryan and I ate pretty quickly and then made our way around to greet all of our guests. Then we got to cut our beautiful cake! The amazing blue and white bow cake (which also tasted delicious!) was truly a highlight of the day for me. And then before we knew it, it was time for my favorite part of the whole wedding: the opening of the dance floor! And that's where I spent the whole rest of the evening. You can read all about our wedding playlist and see dance floor photos in this blog post!
A few dance floor highlights: my friend Meredith is really into making crazy life sized crafts, and I invited her to bring her giant Duolingo Owl costume to our wedding dance floor. She delivered!! Duo came out during the song Stacy's Mom, and it was such a hit. I also did the classic bouquet toss for the single ladies later in the evening... and ironically Meredith happened to win that!
We did a fun sparkler exit by the Wyndham parking garage at the end of the evening, and then Ryan and I were off. Enjoy these photos from our memorable wedding reception!
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