Having your Wedding Reception at Home

Can’t find the wedding reception location of your dreams? Having your wedding at home might be the option for you. But before you lock in an at-home wedding, there are a few details you’ll need to consider.

Reception venues are in the business of hosting events for large numbers of guests. In addition to serving food and drinks, successful venues have perfected the art of making your guests comfortable. In fact, you might not even notice the lengths these venues go to, to ensure a comfortable guest experience.

But don’t fear. We’ve got you. Here are just some of the elements you need to think about when planning your wedding at home, so you have the time of your lives on the day itself.

Guest comfort at your wedding is really important. Your guests will need to be able to access bathroom facilities easily.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when considering whether your home bathrooms are equipped to handle your wedding guest count:

1. Where are your bathrooms located in your home?
2. How many toilets do you have in total? Will this be enough for the number of guests you are inviting to your wedding?
3. Will those with mobility issues be able to access them easily? Eg do you need to use stairs to access the bathrooms in your home?
4. If you are having your wedding outside but want your guests to walk to your house to use your bathrooms, is there enough light to guide the way?
5. Are they in parts of the house you would prefer your guests not to see?

If you answer some of the questions above and decide you need another toilet option for your guests, you can consider hiring some portable bathrooms to ensure your guests are comfortable on your wedding day.

Here are some handy tips in relation to hiring portable bathrooms for your wedding:

Tip 1. Opt for portable units that don’t need access to power – that way you won’t need to provide extension cords to power points or have cords running between power points and the bathroom units. Cords can be a tripping hazard.

Tip 2. Ask the provider what is included when you hire the portable toilet for your wedding guests. You might need to stock up on additional toilet paper, hand wash and waste bins for paper towelling that guests might use to dry their hands

Tip 3. Consider whether you have a flat area where the portable toilet unit can be placed on the day. Most portable toilet hire companies won’t be able to place the toilets on a slope.

Tip 4. Decide who is going to be responsible for cleaning the toilets – sometimes the floor surfaces of the toilet units can become wet and dirty. Some guests may accidentally leave drinks and other rubbish inside the toilet units making them uncomfortable for other guests to use.

Having adequate lighting at your home is really important if you plan to host family and friends. Poor lighting is a hazard for your guests and also the wedding vendors you have booked to help you host your wedding.

It is imperative that all pathways used on your wedding day are well lit including those leading to your toilets, rubbish area and catering kitchen. The bar team will also need adequate light to ensure they can see what they are serving your wedding guests during the evening.

Here are some questions to ask yourselves when planning lighting for your home-based wedding.

Take a look around your garden space. Are the areas where your guests will be entertained well lit?

Is the path to your bathrooms (either in your home or portable) well lit?  

Is the entry and exit point going to be flooded with light so your guests can easily make their way onto your property and off your property again at the end of your reception?

Think about the areas of your property that your catering team will use, including for food service and drinks service. This includes paths leading to mobile cool rooms or your home-based fridge. Are all of these areas well lit?

Planning out your lighting before your wedding will ensure that guests and wedding vendors are able to move around your home and property safely at your wedding.

Wedding celebrations can produce quite a lot of waste. So thinking about how you are going to dispose of that rubbish is essential if you are planning a home-based wedding.

Using domestic size rubbish bins for a home-based wedding is not realistic unless each of your wedding vendors (eg catering team and bar team) are taking all of your rubbish off site at the end of your celebration.

Here’s some handy questions to help you create an effective rubbish disposal plan for your wedding:

1. Ask your vendors what rubbish they will take with them and what rubbish will become your responsibility

• If your vendors are not taking away your rubbish or you are hosting a DIY wedding, drink bottles, cans and food waste can quickly add up. Consider hiring a mobile trailer with sides on where rubbish can be placed during your reception.

Divide the trailer into two sections. Have one side for recyclable rubbish and one side for general waste. That way, if you need to head to the rubbish tip with the rubbish when you tidy up, you won’t need to pay for the recycled waste (and mother nature will thank you too!)

• Take a look around your property and decide where your rubbish refuse area will be. Make sure you let vendors know the location so they can easily dispose of rubbish across the celebration. Remember to also ensure there is adequate lighting in this area and on the path to this area to keep everyone safe

• Work out whether you need to place any bins in your celebration spaces so your wedding guests can help keep your space clean and tidy

• Stock up on garbage bags that fit the bins you are providing. It is really important that the garbage bags you purchase fit the bins properly. It can be great to leave a supply of bin liners behind your bar or in the area where your catering team is working

Planning a fairly relaxed home-based wedding? Whilst self service drinks service is a potential option for your wedding, you need to have a think about what will happen as guests finish their drinks.

You also need to think about how you will keep drinks cold, replenish drinks and glassware across your wedding celebration.

These top tips are useful when thinking about drinks service at your wedding:

1. Have a think about which areas of your home or property guests will be using at your wedding. Do you want to serve drinks in each of these areas or just one area?
2. Decide if you will book bar staff to set up your drinks/bar area, including putting your drinks on ice before the reception. You want drinks to be cold for your guests when they arrive in your cocktail hour or reception space
3. Consider hiring a mobile cool room to keep all of your drinks cold overnight – your drinks supply is unlikely to fit in your home fridge. The mobile cool room is also a great place to store ice bags for use during the later part of your wedding 
4. If you are not having a mobile bar service at your home-based wedding, nominate someone to collect ice on the day and delegate the job of filling buckets with drinks and ice close to the start time of your wedding
5.  Hire or purchase glassware. Keep in mind that guests will use more than one glass across your wedding celebration so you will need to buy or hire multiple glasses per guest
6. If you want to avoid having to hire or purchase glassware or looking to limit the amount of glassware you need to hire for your wedding, consider offering drinks in cans and bottles
7. If you are not hiring a mobile bar service/team, decide who will replenish drinks to your drinks tubs across the night
8. If you are not hiring a mobile bar service/team, bottles and glasses will start to build up around your reception space and you need a plan for clearing them. And no, you definitely should not be clearing bottles and cans from tables on your wedding day! Decide who will assist with tidying up across the celebration and let them know where the rubbish disposal area is to place empty bottles and cans
9. Have a plan for when your bar team leave. One of the benefits of getting married at home is that you can party into the night. If your bar team are departing before you are ready to stop celebrating, ask the team to put your drinks on ice so guests can serve themselves. If the bar team brought all of the glassware and take it when they leave, have some disposable cups on hand for the remainder of your celebration  

It is super popular to consider food trucks come to serve food at your home-based reception. It’s also common for couples to opt for catering companies who set up a satellite kitchen near their reception space.

When you have external vendors coming on site, many will need access to power. Common wedding vendors that need access to power include food trucks, catering companies, mobile bar providers, lighting providers (eg festoon lighting, chandeliers for marquees etc), DJs and some musicians.

Take some time to fully understand the power needs of your vendor team.

For example, consider whether the food truck you have booked needs access to power. And if they do, do they have extension cords to reach that power source or do you need to provide a power source directly to where they will be parked on your property.

Hosting a wedding at home means you will be relying on your domestic power source. Hiring a generator as a backup power source is worth serious consideration. You will place your domestic power supply under significant pressure if many vendors need access to power. A generator provides an additional power source for vendors but also the perfect back up plan should there be a power outage in your neighbourhood for any reason. Imagine not having any lighting on your property or power for your catering team to provide food to your wedding guests.

You can hire mobile generators fairly inexpensively from plant hire companies. Many companies will deliver but you will also come across companies that will allow you to tow the unit yourself to save on delivery costs.

For a home-based wedding it is a good idea to nominate someone to turn your external house lights on at a particular time too. This will ensure guests and vendors can move around your property easily and safely.

Check the size of any large vehicles or equipment coming onto your property. For example, if you are hiring a marquee, do you have a flat area where this can be erected safely? If you are having a food truck come on site, make sure the dimensions of the truck fit down your driveway without hitting trees.

Measure out the dimensions of large vehicles, structures or equipment during your wedding planning process. Where possible, schedule a visit from each vendor you have booked before your wedding will ensure that there are no access problems (or surprises!) with vehicles, items or equipment they will be bringing to your property on your wedding day.

Everyone loves free flowing, cold drinks at a wedding reception. So take some time to think about how you are going to keep all of your drinks (and potentially some food items too) cool for your wedding reception.

Hiring a mobile cool room can be a great way to keep your drinks cool and your wait staff happy. Sure, you can line up 20 coolers in your garage, but this requires a lot of ice and some heavy lifting for your bar staff during your event (instead of carrying cartons from a mobile cool room, staff will need to transfer bottles and cans individually which can be time consuming.

Home-based weddings are so much fun, but they also require a fair bit of preparation and planning work. In the lead up to your wedding, vendors will need access to your property. You’ll need to appoint someone to be at your home on your wedding day (and potentially in the days prior to your wedding) to accept vendors who need to make deliveries. Some vendors will arrive early in the day. Others will arrive closer to your celebration start time.

Create a schedule that shows the indicative arrival time for each vendor so you or those who will be greeting your vendors can keep track of who is coming and going. You may also need to take a little time to stagger arrival and departure times for your vendor team if access to your home or property is tricky. For example, if you have a long narrow driveway that vendors need to use and there is no where for vendors to turn around and leave the property again, you may need to stagger arrival times. Be sure to check with each vendor how long it will take them to drop off their items before they can move their car or vehicle to make way for the next vendor in your team.

With careful preparation, property access will not be a problem. With no planning at all, it can quickly turn into a nightmare and timeframes for getting your house ready for your wedding can be impacted. That’s stressful for you and stressful for your wedding vendor team.  

As an indication, florists will need to deliver and place flowers around your home, your cake maker might need to deliver your cake and food trucks, caterers and bar teams will arrive early to get set up and settled before your reception commences.

I would highly recommend an On the Day Wedding Coordinator or Wedding Day Manager to assist with what is called vendor bump in and bump out. This simply means having someone on board to manage the arrival and departure of your vendor team including making sure everyone shows up!

If your budget doesn’t stretch that far, you will need to find a trusted friend or family member who is willing to be at your home to ensure everything runs smoothly. This job is not for the faint hearted and requires careful planning and an eye for detail. 

First Aid Kits and Emergency Details on hand

Whilst you would never want it to happen, sometimes accidents can occur at a wedding reception. Be prepared with a fully equipped first aid kit on hand and consider also having a list of your local GP, hospital and emergency services numbers on your fridge or somewhere prominent in your reception space.

Also, consider having hoses, fire extinguishers and fire blankets on hand for any fire related emergency. Notify bar and catering teams of locations for these in case any issues arise in food and drink preparation spaces.

In addition, having a mop, bucket, broom, protective gloves and plenty of garbage bags on hand will assist if a small spillage or breakage occurs. 

Planning a wedding at home comes with a few more logistics, but it also brings unmatched warmth and personal charm. With a little prep and the right support, your home can be the perfect place to celebrate love.