How long after the DW should the AHR be?

[jerseygal]

Thanks for sharing your dates and ideas.

 

My fiance and I have been talking about an AHR, but we haven't yet solidified the date. I was thinking that since our destination wedding in Jamaica will be on the US independence day (July 4), our AHR could be on the Jamaican independence day (August 4) here in the States. However, Aug 4, 2011, is a Thursday, so we'll have it on the day before Labor Day 2011 - September 4!

[margokendall]

We are getting married in MX on 7/11/11 and our AHR will be 8/27/11. I wanted to wait until I got he professional photos back before we had the reception. Plus it will give everyone a little time to wind down before another party.

 

[Vettiebean]

I was curious about this as well. Personally, I think it just depends on your situation, what works for you, and what you're comfortable with. Everyone's situation is different, so I don't believe you should be bound by all that. Besides, if we were all completely traditional and rule abiding, would we be getting married in random destinations?! lol 

 

For me, we're getting married on 11/1/11. We initially wanted to have an AHR on 11/11/11. However, that's just prob not gonna happen. For starters, we're thinking about extending our stay to include a honeymoon, so we'd barely be getting back a couple days before the 11th. So, we've decided to instead just have a small, nice dinner in Texas for my family, a nice dinner in either Vancouver/Captiva/Chicago for his family, then a big fun party in LA for our friends. So, we're going to be separating everything out probably over the course of a few months. The other thing is we'd like to have our pictures ready for the dinners to show our friends and family. So.. that's that. Hope this was more helpful than it was confusing! haha 

 

Good luck planning, do what makes you happy! 

[frizzy64]

We are having our AHR 11 days after we return from Jamaica. Hopefully this will give us enough time to get things organised and have a bit of a rest in between.

[hutchets]

Our AHR is April 30th, 8 days after we return from Jamaica.  I'm a bit concerned about having enough time for it since it is really what requires more planning than the wedding itself.  Especially with pictures for a slide show etc...  If we didn't do it then, we would have had to wait until July and we personally felt that was too long.  We wanted to keep the wedding theme going and then it will be done and over with. 

[Gatorgirl]

 

Since we too are doing a destination wedding, we have decided to have our honeymoon 2 weeks afterwards so that we can rest from all of the stress of the wedding. That way we can enjoy our honeymoon even more and won't be so tired! Our AHR (aka Wedding Celebration), will be a BBQ/picnic at a park 2 weeks after that. 

We felt like it was more stressful to have everything back to back! 

[Banksnelson]

I thought it would be more exciting to keep it close to the actual wedding. We get married April 8, return from Mexico April 14, and AHR is the next weekend April 23. But now that I'm thinking about it we won't have our professional pics back by then which kind of sucks because I wanted to be able to show them off.

[Hoisthemain]

We are getting married in Mexico on October 8th, returning home to Atlanta on October 13th, and having our ATH on October 22nd....so about 8 days after we get home.  I originally wanted to do it November 12th so it would be exactly a month but I started getting feedback from family that its getting too close to Thanksgiving so we moved it up....I think anything from 1 week to 1-2 months should be fine...but really its whatever works for YOU!!!  Good luck!!!

[CamilleA]

I think that I am going to wait until we get photos and pictures back from our vendors before we have the party - we want to show everyone what a great time we had!

[JessMarie]

We will be getting back from our weddingmoon (private- just the two of us) on May 1st (2012) and having our AHR on May 5th (Saturday).  I know that is pretty rushed- but we are getting married on April 23rd and our photographer that we have talked to has promised a CD within 3 days of our wedding, before we even leave St. Lucia.  So we will be able to share those.  My DF parents are hosting the AHR so any catering details, rentals, etc they have promised to handle while we are away.  I then will have 3 full days (not going back to work) to handle putting together our favors, and any follow up calls.  It will be crazy but I wanted it to be the same week we got back.