Transport service and reception on the wedding day – plan my wedding

Transport to and from the service and wedding reception is one of the finishing touches to your wedding. You may have always dreamed of arriving in a white Rolls-Royce, or leaving your reception in a hot air balloon; now is the time to make your dreams come true, provided cash is no problem!

The most conventional way of travelling is to hire sleek-black or white wedding cars from a specialised firm; these may be Daimlers, Rolls-Royces, Rovers, Jaguars or other smart and prestigious models. Other firms offer black or white London taxis, vintage cars of various models, and large limousines for large wedding parties! If you find that you cannot afford to hire cars, or all the cars you need for the wedding party, check up among your friends and relations for smart cars that could be beribboned on the day; they don’t need to be black or white – in fact scarlet, blue, dark green or silver would look very classy and a bit unusual into the bargain. If money is no object you may want to go for one of the more extreme forms of transport offered by some wedding firms – vintage buses, horse and carriage, pony and trap, etc; but if you choose an open carriage or car, don’t forget that it may rain!

You will need transport for the bride’s mother to church – she may well be driven there by the rest of the bride’s family, or by family friends who can pick her up on the way to church. The formal cars are generally needed for the bride and her father to arrive at the church (this car is then usually used to transport the newly married couple to the reception), and for any bridesmaids (this car may be used to carry the bridesmaids and best man to the reception). Of course, if you have many attendants, you will need still more formal transport.

Once the couple have been taken to the reception venue the hired chauffeur’s duties are usually over, although you can retain the car to take you to your first-night destination if you wish. More commonly, you will want to hire or arrange a car to take you on honeymoon from the reception – preferably hidden somewhere close by meanwhile, out of the reach of mischievous hands!

In some North African tribes the bride is swaddled in blankets, put on the back of a female relative, and carried into the courtyard where she is placed in a ‘bridal box’. This is a wooden frame draped in a large blanket and placed on the back of a camel or horse.

Transport checklist

In Chinese weddings couples often did not actually meet until the wedding ceremony. The bride was conveyed to her future husband’s house in a curtained sedan chair decorated in red, the wedding colour of the Chinese.

In traditional Greek ceremonies the bridegroom must ride to the bride’s house on horseback while the youths of the village try to block his way. If he succeeds in riding through them, they must carry him into the house on their clasped hands.

In Hervey Island in the South Seas, if the bride is the eldest daughter she has to walk to her groom s house on a path made by members of her husband’s tribe as they lie face down on the ground.