Wedding Planning Tips: Guests

Planning your guests does not end after you’ve finalized your guests list.  Do you know that the first 2 minutes of a reception or event is the most important? This means engaging your wedding reception guests as soon or even before they arrive at your reception venue.  Here are some wedding planning tips to keep your reception filled with happy guests who will remember what a great time they had at your wedding.

Get your guests involved even before they come to the wedding reception. 

Get your guests excited and involved by requesting them to come dressed in attire appropriate to your wedding theme or formality.  For example, asking your guests to come dressed in red, white and blue for a  July 4th wedding; or in long formal gowns for ladies and black ties for gents for a “celebrity” style wedding theme; or flowery shirts or dresses for a beach wedding theme.  You get the idea.

If you would rather have your guests pick their own attire for your wedding, you can still engage them in another way.  Ask your maid of honor or a trusted friend to request your guests to bring with them any of the following items to the wedding reception:

• a photo of them with both or either one of the marrying couple; the older the picture, the better.  These will be collected, arranged and presented to the newly weds as one of their wedding keepsakes.
• a personal greeting to the wedding couple written in  the stationery provided.  They can drop these notes into a decorated basket or glass jar or hanged from a dried twig at the reception.  This is a good alternative to the traditional guess book and it saves time for guests since they do not have to wait in line to sign the guest book. 

Engage your guests during the first 2 minute of your wedding reception.

Where does your guests engagement start? The moment they step out of their car to enter your wedding venue. Have a greeter at the entrance. The greeter’s attire should give your guests another glimpse of what to expect in the reception. Dress your greeter as a butler complete with white gloves, top hat and tails for a formal wedding reception. For a fun, informal, eco-wedding, how about a lady dressed as “Mother Nature” as a greeter?

Not too keen on costumed greeter? How about greeting the ladies with a bunch of flowers in season or a single rose in the same color as your wedding colors? They can then place the flowers in pretty glass vases waiting for them on their table while attending the reception. The flowers and vases create a pretty table decoration. At the end of the reception, your guests can take the flowers and the pretty vases as your wedding favors.

Entertain your guests while waiting for you and your bridal entourage’s appearance.

There are several ways to entertain your guests while they wait for you and your bridal entourage to join them. 

• Ask someone to hand them a drink, either alcoholic or non-alcoholic. Or, if it is in within your budget, serve hors d’oeuvres with the drinks.
• Have an entertainer to distract your guests from waiting.  This could be a harp player, a string quartet, a karaoke singer or even piped in music that are in line with your wedding theme.

At the end of the reception, everyone, including you and your hubby, will be talking about how much fun they had at your wedding.  Isn’t that a good enough reason to engage your guests in your wedding?