Wedding Planning: Making it Social
With increasingly complicated family structures, not to mention bringing together friends, family and work colleagues, making your wedding an event that guests truly enjoy involves good planning, thoughtfulness and a good dollop of fun.
Conversation Stations
The key to getting your guests talking is often simpler than you think. For example, when planning your wedding tables, it makes sense to choose a lower-level wedding centrepiece so that guests can easily make eye contact and talk over it, rather than having their view blocked.
If you are naturally more of an introvert than an extrovert, it can help on your big day to remember that the wedding is as much about your family and friends sharing in your joy as it is about you as the star attraction. To boost this natural inclination to have fun, provide opportunities for old friends to reminisce, for example by including old photos in your DIY wedding decorations.
Conversation starters like these can be placed all over your venue. Alternatively, try creating active centrepieces that will get your guests talking. An active centrepiece such as a quiz can help people engage with each other, or consider following the French tradition of playing games to get everyone to relax.
Loving Laughter
Weddings are about love, laughter and family and nothing brings people together like a laugh. If you haven’t chosen your wedding readings yet, consider asking a confident friend to read a funny poem or passage. Laughter is the best ice breaker. Another fun distraction is to set up a photo booth so guests can have fun taking silly pictures of each other using a choice of props and frames. This is a great way to make down time at a wedding more interesting, for example between the ceremony and reception or when you are having official photos taken. You can use leftover wholesale wedding accessories or special prop kits to add to the fun.
Social Media
Love it or loathe it, social media has become a ubiquitous part of wedding planning. It can be a really great way to bring guests together before the wedding, especially if they live far away. A wedding website or Facebook page can help organising go smoothly, bring people together to share lifts and provide conversation starters. Ask guests to suggest songs and readings and introduce guests who don’t know each other but propose similar choices. Make use of a social media hashtag to keep social media info gathered together and to help you collect photographs and selfies from the big day.
Nothing kills conversation as quickly as people fiddling with their smartphone or tablet, so don’t be afraid to ask that people don’t use their devices during the meal, speeches or ceremony.
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