Every couple wants their wedding to be special, meaningful, and memorable; a celebration of love to share with family and friends that not only encompasses all of the joy they’re feeling but also tells their story in such a way that guests will always remember how unique the wedding was — and how much fun they had.
We've all been to receptions that are standard - we welcome and celebrate the new married couple, watch them dance, and enjoy cake with them. But creative couples often enjoy coming up with fun games that include the entire guest list.
Including the guests is an excellent way to get people out of their chairs, meeting people they might not otherwise know and feeling like they are truly a part of the celebration, not just observers.
One fun and active game that can be played by all your guests, including grandma as well as the young children, is "want it now".
In this game, you designate a master of ceremonies (if you have a DJ for your wedding reception, this person can serve as the DJ). The MC will have a list of "wants" prepared before the reception. Everyone sits at their tables and waits to hear the command. The MC says he wants a person with painted toenails. All the women with painted toenails run to the front of the room, toward the MC. Each time a table sends someone to the front first, they get a point.
Points should be tallied during the course of this game and prizes awarded at the end of the game. Be sure to have some obvious "wants", as is the painted toenails, or a man with a mustache or a child with a pink dress. But also include some surprises, like "a man with a brown purse" which will require a man to find a woman at his table with the brown purse and run-up to the front of the room with that.
Another fun wedding reception game that includes all your guests is musical chairs using men as the chairs. All the men line up and kneel on one knee. The women begin playing the game of musical chairs, but when the music stops, they must find a knee to sit on. No "chairs" are removed during the version of the game, but instead, people are eliminated when either the man falls down when the woman finds his knee or when the woman falls down. Both are out either way and if both fall down, they are also both out then (as well as perhaps a bit bruised). This is a fun game that often brings on gales of laughter and adds to a relaxed reception atmosphere.
If many guests are traveling a good distance to the wedding or don't know many other guests, it's always fun to include a game that will allow them to now only get to know each other but the bride and groom as well. For this game, you'll need a MC again, which can be a very outgoing member of the wedding party or the DJ. The reception guests are broken into two groups, which can be as simple as having people count off "1, 2, 1, 2" and so on until the entire guest list is either a "1" or a "2". Then the two groups band together for the duration of the game.
The DJ, or MC, offers a series of questions relating to the bride and groom. The teams should work together to answer the questions, then as quickly as possible provide the answer. The bride and groom will confirm if the answer is correct or not. This is an excellent way for otherwise "stranger" guests to get to know one another and have some fun in the process. It's also an excellent way to get to know the bride and groom!
Organizing games at a wedding reception is a great way to get people involved and make them feel they are truly a part of the celebration. It's also a way to fill time if the wedding planners know this isn't a "dancing" group or if you want to loosen people up for a long night of celebrating. Whether a small or large wedding, reception games work for just about any group.
In addition, don't assume wedding reception guests will be offended or annoyed by these active games. Most people report to wedding planners they truly enjoy being more active and having fun games to play during a wedding reception.
If you are planning a wedding and plan to have a unity candle as part of the ceremony, you might want to think outside the box.
Traditionally, the unity candle involves three candles. The bride has one, the groom the other, and their two lighted candles light the third candle. This is done to represent the coming together of the two people to make one unit. In some alternate methods, family members are invited to participate in the unity candle lighting, often the mothers of the bride and groom, or other close members of the family. Each family then lights a candle, and together they light the unity candle to symbolize of the coming together of the families.
Now, there are a few twists you can add to this fairly conventional aspect of a wedding ceremony. You can provide each guest with an unlit candle when they arrive at the ceremony. After the couple lights the unity candle, they can ask the guests to move to the front of the church (or wherever the ceremony is being held) and light their candles with the lighted unity candle. This can take a bit of time and might be best with a smaller guest list. But it is a meaningful way to not only get your guests involved in the ceremony itself but also symbolize the union of family and friends with the marriage.
If there is a large guest list and it would be a prohibitive waste of time to do candle lighting involving everyone at the ceremony, some brides and grooms like to bring the unity candle to the reception. Light the candle again and provide each guest with a small votive candle (the candle holder will be on the tables at individual table settings). As guests come into the reception area or hall, they can light their votive and take it to their table to place into the votive holder. This small votive candle can double as a wedding favor, particularly if you decorate or enhance a plain votive candleholder in some way to coordinate with your wedding.
Of course, you can forget having a unity candle at the ceremony altogether. Many brides these days are trying to reduce the length of the ceremony and spend more time planning the reception. In that light, some choose to do away with a unity candle altogether. You can certainly do this, or you can cut it out of the ceremony and make it part of the reception.
To do this, you can use the votive candle option suggested above, or you can simply incorporate the unity candle lighting into the reception activities themselves. For example, you might choose a quiet moment in the reception to have a lighting of the unity candle. It might be during a short prayer prior to the serving of the meal, or right before the cake is cut. In this case, the unity candle can then be used as decoration on the cake table. As the bride and groom cut the cake and pieces are served to guests, the candle can also serve as a reminder of the couple's new bond and that the bond is shared with all the guests as well.
Although having a unity candle at the wedding or reception isn't necessary, it is certainly an option that many brides and grooms opt to include. But it's important to remember that as with so much surrounding wedding planning there are ways to make it unique and interesting and special to the couple getting married.
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