For you, your wedding will fly right on by. It’s your big day, and everyone will be there to see you. You’ll have a million little things to attend to: photos to be taken, dances to dance, conversations to have and – oh yeah, by the way – somewhere in there you’ll have to actually get married. The four or five hours or so will go by in a snap if you’re the one walking down the aisle.
For just about everyone else, though, the wedding will be a very different experience. Most of your guests won’t be part of the wedding party, and that means they need things to entertain them. They can entertain each other, to a certain extent, so you’ll want to spend a lot of time deliberately arranging the seating chart to put guests who are close to one another together. But they’re eventually going to get bored if you don’t give them anything to do. Start by getting them talking, but don’t stop there!
Ice Breakers
Conversations have to start somewhere, especially when you inevitably get at least one or two tables with a couple people who don’t know each other or don’t know each other well. Don’t make your guests break the ice all on their own – help them out! Write some fun, simple questions right on the table number cards. Here are a few suggestions:
- How do you know the bride and groom?
- What was the last text message you sent?
- Where are you from?
- What are you watching on Netflix right now?
- Who’s the first person in your phone’s contact list?
- Who’s the last person you called?
If you really want to make sure each group follows through with the little game, give a card to each person at the table with instructions on whom they’re supposed to ask the questions (person to their left, person across from them, etc.)
Table Ambassadors
Worried your guests won’t take the bait? Assign someone to make it happen. Pick out particularly extroverted guests and give them the assignment of starting conversations at each table and making sure everyone is involved. This will get everyone talking and make the ambassadors feel like they have special roles in your wedding.
Guest Guide
Of course, you don’t want people to only talk to those sitting at their table. With guest guides like Guesterly you can create completely customized photo guides of everyone at your wedding. Guesterly gives you a full roster of all guests in print or digital format like some sort of wedding yearbook. Every entry will have a short bio, a picture and any other little details you want to include for each person. This helps everyone put names to faces and get a quick overview of who everyone is, encouraging like-minded guests to spark up conversations. Plus, when the wedding is over, the photo guide will make a great memento for you.
Drink Ticket Games
What does most everyone at a wedding want to do? Take advantage of the open bar, so make them work for it! Give out drink tickets with mini scavenger hunts on them, like “Find someone dressed in blue and ask them about where they went to high school.” Once they follow through on the ticket, they can take whomever they approached up to the bar with them for free drinks.
Fantastic Food
Of course, guests are going to want some great food to go along with all the drinking. Give it to them! But don’t just give them any old platters, get unique and creative with your dishes and presentation selections to get people talking.
Word Games
Set out some wedding couple-themed crossword puzzles, word jumbles, trivia games, riddles and/or Mad Libs booklets to get everyone active and working together on something. Few things bond people better than teamwork.
Hands-on Games
Really want to get everyone active? Take it up a notch from word games and give them mini checkers, tic-tac-toe, cube mazes, Rubik’s cubes, peg board games, etc. These games will get guests competing against one another, and everyone loves to win, even silly games. Thankfully, these games are silly enough that the competition shouldn’t ever rise above friendly.
Get Artsy
If you’re hosting an informal wedding, then give your guests something to do that they loved when they were kids and wish they still could – doodling. Leave drawing utensils and paper table covers at every table and watch your guests scribble away.
Cubic Zirconia Engagement Rings
Are you thinking about getting married? Then before you think about the wedding you need to think about the ring. When you do, think about high-quality cubic zirconia engagement rings – they’re not what you may be thinking. Russian Formula cubic zirconia engagement rings capture the light just as beautifully as real diamonds, and the cost savings allow you to get a rock that will wow everyone who sees it on your finger.