How will guests exit your wedding? This Project Block comes into play at the very end of the night. After the sun sets, what does the exit strategy look like for safely getting to a vehicle and then safely getting to a bed? Now, for those of you who are using a city venue, your Project Block is easy and you can maybe even be done after Step 1. However, if you are getting married in the country, a barn or even a winery where you have to take long windy roads and lots of turns to get there, this Project Block is for you! We’re going to walk through a few conversations you need to have, and questions you need to ask, then we’ll go through how to build your Project Block Worksheet.

Step 1: How will Guests get to vehicles?

Conversations to have here, and we start with a big one, are the alcohol supervisions. There are all manners of liabilities involved here between the contracts with you, your venue, bartenders, and I’m sure the Insurance Company you went through to get your Big Day Liability Rider. But let’s be honest, safety is the top priority here. So no matter your guest list and whom you think will be “fine” at the end of the night, have a conversation with your spouse to be and let’s have a plan…

On-Call Taxi Service:

Call some Taxi Companies the day before your wedding and let them know you’ll be having a wedding. They may very well give you the direct line to the driver who usually covers that area, saving you a patch through dispatch. However, you may also want to just call dispatch and have them send you a fleet of taxis if multiple people need them.

Guest Exiting System:

If guests truly are fine to drive, you still have to get them to their vehicle safely. These days everyone has a flashlight app on their phone, so providing mini flashlights isn’t as big of a priority. However, keep in mind that if you’re having an Instagram Hashtag wedding, phones might be dead by the end of the night. {#Picturesfordays!} You may provide a few flashlights just in case. If your venue has an actual parking lot {city venues again} you’re probably just fine without them.   More thoughts on safe walking to the vehicle…

Ground Lighting–

If your venue is in the country, and guests are parking in the fields, you might consider putting some spotlights out there, or even some of those solar powered stake lights to make a path so that they can find the gate entry in the dark. Sure, it seems obvious where the gate entry is in the daylight, but 5 hours later, walking down a dark field with their cell phone flashlight on… It might be nice to have a point of reference.

Fence Lighting–

You might also want to put a beacon light at the gate entry so that cars can find it. Granted, they’ll have headlights on, but if you’re calling in taxis it might help to tell them to drive through the lit up gate to get the guests.

Step 2: Getting Guests Home

Taxi Guests–

You can likely tells the drivers the hotel or locations very easily. A time saver though might be to ask the night before and ask for a rate from your venue to the blocked hotel group. If you have multiple guests going to the same place they might be able to send a van instead of a taxi and then even still, if you know there to be multiple drop-offs along the same route, guests can split fares. {This is sort of a mini-shuttle system}

Driving Guests– Remember

Remember when we said their phone batteries might be dead from all the pictures and flashlight usage? Well, that’s just the start. Likely, their Google Maps and GPS worked to get them from the city to the country just fine. But now that they’ve been out there awhile, they’ve lost service completely and cannot connect to any directional app at all. They have no idea if you take a left at the big rock or was it at the maple tree?

Exiting Cards–

You might want to make a few postcard sized hand out with simple directions from your venue to the main roads just for guests to get through all of the confusing turns. Not every guest will need them, and city guests will be fine. But, if you have one of those hidden winery gem venues that are 14 turns and go until you meet the horizon type venues, this will help!

Step 3- Shuttles

The Shuttle System is always a great idea. It has many advantages that are obvious but a few cons as well. Including the scheduled times.   Con #1– You often set 2 times for pick up and then they are an hour+ apart because there is a round trip to make. It is possible that your wedding party flow will “end” when the first shuttle arrives and the first wave of people leave. Now granted, the first wave is usually all of the parents with small children and elderly, so not the partiers anyway.   Con #2– But secondly, You might have a group of disgruntled parents pacing with grouchy toddlers waiting for the shuttle to come for an hour… they are stuck out there with no way to leave if a shuttle is the only way to get to your venue.   If you have to use shuttles to get there and everyone will Shuttle/bus in from a local parking lot at once before the wedding, I recommend these exiting systems.

Secret Chauffer & Liaison–

Have a small car and driver on stand-by {A bridesmaid’s boyfriend or your cousin in college is great for this!} They can chauffeur the independent, early leavers back to the group parking lot.   Do not publicize this chauffer or they will be abused. Have another person {more like your Wedding Coordinator or even Mother} be the only Liaison to them. This Liaison mingles around the wedding and notices the disgruntled guests who might want to leave {usually holding the tantrum child} they can politely and confidentially ask, “Would you like to go home? I can get someone to drive you?”   All the while nobody knows that was part of the plan. This way, they don’t feel bad for asking someone to get them out of there. {Car seats…car seats are the only issue with this plan. If everyone came in on a bus the kids were likely held, a car won’t be that easy or safe! You’ll have to plan for this or let those parents drive themselves in}

Shuttle Waves-

You can then have 2 waves of shuttles come later in the night to get the remaining guests who did not manage to sneak out early.

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Hi there! I’m Kandice, Owner of Green-Eyed Girl Productions and engineer of The Project Block System. Thank you so much for stopping in on this blog post! Join hundreds of Bride who have worked through The Project Block System while planning their Wedding. Our Team Experience is now FREE to everyone planning a wedding during this chaotic and confusing time.

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