Many brides like to have their weddings seaside, so they move the festivities to a beach locale, either on their local coast or somewhere more exotic like Jamaica or the Bahamas. If the wedding is also a weekend event where guests will be around for more than just the wedding, the bride can plan a sailing excursion.

If the wedding is in the Caribbean, how about a cooking demonstration? The bride and groom can arrange for the wedding guests to enjoy a complimentary cooking demonstration put on by the hotel or a local cook. Since much of the food the guests eat while visiting for the wedding will be different than what they eat at home, they might enjoy learning how to prepare it for home enjoyment.

Say the wedding is in Hawaii, another popular destination wedding location. Here, you can plan several activities around the location. In Hawaii, guests will enjoy a hula lesson.

At a beachside reception, you can play “pass the shell”, where a large shell is passed around and guests “listen” for some advice from the other world.

Other pre-wedding activities can include guided tours, shopping excursions and wine tasting activities (if applicable). If you choose to include any of these activities keep in mind that the bride and groom (or their families) are expected to pay for the bulk of them. Do not tell people ahead of time that the activity will be x dollars.

Since one of the great benefits of the destination wedding is that only your closest friends and family will likely surround you, you can plan some meaningful activities that you wouldn’t plan if the wedding were a larger event. For example, you might plan a slumber party night with close friends that includes movies, popcorn and drinks in your hotel room, villa or cottage, depending on where the wedding is held.

Of course, if you plan a destination wedding, for some people this might double as their vacation. In that event, you might not want to schedule too many activities but instead let people find their own activities and entertainment both before and after the wedding.

Depending on the location of the wedding and the couple’s relationship with their families, often there are other activities that follow the main event.

This breakfast activity can be as simple or elaborate as you like. Some people like to have this breakfast at a relative’s house because that is friendly and familiar and more conducive to everyone hanging out and enjoying themselves. It can be potluck style or catered.

Many families like to have the bride and groom open presents the day after the wedding. In that case, building in the opening of presents is essential. This can be a simple gathering of friends and family or you can turn the present opening into an all-out activity, where each item is opened, demonstrated or displayed and discussed in great detail.

Opening gifts doesn’t have to a dry activity. You can add some silly fun. You might even create a game. Everyone has to guess what’s in each gift prior to its being opened. (Of course, people can’t guess on their on gifts.) Someone can be in charge of keeping a tally and whoever gets the most right, wins a small prize.

The women in the bride’s family might want to help her pack up her gown (or send it to the dry cleaners) and preserve her wedding bouquet.

In the crafty light, some brides might want to plan a scrapbook party for after the wedding. You won’t have photos back from the photographer, but you can scrapbook many other wedding events, such as pre-events like manicures, various parties and the candid photos take by wedding guests the night before. More than being focused on the photos, this activity gives the women a chance to reflect on the events of the wedding, laugh at all the fun ties and journal and preserve memories before some are lost. It will also help the bride feel as if she’s partly in control of all those photos before she leaves on her honeymoon and takes yet more photos.

If gifts were opened on this “day after the wedding”, crafty groups might want to make thank you cards. Choose a design long before the wedding, perhaps even making a prototype as well. Even the men can get on this act, helping to fold the cards, perhaps handling any computer work and even getting their fingers on glue and scissors.

Some brides and grooms plan activities the day fter the wedding that are designed to help everyone calm down, relax and unwind after what has likely been a busy weekend. You might pack a football, a volleyball net or items to play baseball. Whatever it is, the idea here is to have some fun and blow off steam. Make your own rules when playing the games. Today is about relaxing, unwinding and spending some quality time with friends and family before the special weekend is over.

]]> http://gogoboydiary.com/post-wedding-activities.html/feed 0 http://gogoboydiary.com/wedding-music.html http://gogoboydiary.com/wedding-music.html#comments Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:30:06 +0000 wedding http://gogoboydiary.com/?p=25 Music is as much a component of a good wedding as food and drink. So whether you have a full live band, a string quartet, a DJ spinning tunes or recorded music from a boom box, it should be included.

But music’s not just for dancing. One popular idea is to play musical chairs. Sure, this is a fun kid’s game and you don’t want to insult your guests in any way, but you can have some fun with this version of musical chairs. One fun option is to use the men as the chairs – they kneel on the floor, with one knee on the floor and the other bent. The women sit lightly on the men’s’ knees as they are playing musical chairs. Some brides and grooms like to play musical chairs in order to give away the table centerpiece, which many guests like to take home.

How about a rousing game of “name that tune”? This is a game that’s best for a smaller, intimate wedding where everyone knows the bride and groom well. Prior to the wedding, whoever is planning the wedding should get a list of favorite songs of both the bride and groom. Create a CD of those songs, and then create a game of “name that tune”. Guests can be divided into teams and then be played just a small snippet of each song. Once one group has bowed out, the other group will then have to “name that tune”.

Depending on the style of the wedding, there are many fun games you can play to get the bride and groom out on the dance floor. Now, if this is a very large and very elegant wedding, this option might not work since there is certain decorum to maintain, but for a casual, fun, family-centered wedding some of these games can be fun.

If guests want to “call out” the wedding couple onto the dance floor, they can be asked to get out on the dance floor themselves first and hula hoop or perform their own version of a break dance. Much in the way guests sometimes have to “perform” to get the couple the kiss this is another way to get the guests involved and having fun in order to create fun wedding memories for the bride and groom.

Depending on where the reception will be held, you can plan many activities based on the setting.

Let’s start with some basics based on popular wedding locations. One fun game for a winery wedding is a blindfolded wine tasting game. If the bride and groom are wine drinkers, this might not a game the bride and groom should be a part of, but instead guests and wedding party members.

Say you are having a reception at a country club on a golf course. It’s possible your theme will include golf elements, so why not include golf in some reception activities or games? You certainly could head to the golf course for a “hole in one” contest, or have a driving contest to see which guest has the best stroke. As a simple, “who gets the centerpiece game”, you could have people guess how many golf balls there are in the floral centerpiece (which could decorate a plain large glass vase filled with flowers). Similarly, there could be a large vase or other clear container filled with golf balls at the reception somewhere and guests could guess how many golf balls are in the vase.

Now, if your reception and ceremony are both to be held outdoors and guests will be milling outdoors, think about games or activities that can take place outdoors and still keep to your level of formality or informality. For example, if the reception is being held at a park, perhaps guests might enjoy a “walk down memory lane”. Prior to the reception, someone can use potted plants or arbors to create a little private lane, which guests can walk through.

If your wedding and reception are fairly casual, you can always tell guests ahead of time to prepare for a ball game or some other fun outdoor activity. Women can bring a pair of sneakers. Just imagine the fun photos you’ll get out of a rousing game of football or baseball played by women in dresses and sneakers and men in suits and sneakers!

You can provide a challenge activity involving barefoot dancing in the grass or a Frisbee toss in the backyard.

If you are planning a wedding and know that most members of this wedding party are hams who won’t mind the whole “public speaking” thing, then by all means keep the toasts traditional with dad, the best man and others taking their expected turns at the microphone.

But if you’re looking for something different, either because you want to save putting people on the spot, or you simply want to do something different and fun, read on.

First, you can certainly take the whole toast thing off the agenda if you wish. There are no rules requiring a toast at any wedding. Weddings should be unique events and reflect the personalities of the bride and groom.

You can go the video route, which asks people to essentially make a toast on camera and then the video is given to the bride and groom later.

If your guest list includes many outgoing people then consider “pass the microphone”. Most people like silly. Say dad takes the microphone first. His last name ends with T (so, let’s say dad’s last name is Smith). Tony? Tina? Theresa?) and pass the microphone to that person, who then gives a toast.

Getting people when they least expect it and then asking them to remember something funny or meaningful about the bride and groom can result in interesting, funny and truthful results.

Number the tables and at various intervals, have the MC or DJ call a number, which will require guests at that table to decide amongst themselves who will give the toast at that table.

Say you have plenty of public speakers in the group, and finding willing toast participants won’t be a problem. There’s an easy solution to this problem. You can provide open-ended topics for the toast speakers. Say you are providing an “open mike” toast arrangement, where anyone can request the microphone and offer a toast. There might be slips of paper to choose, or just one sheet of paper with several ideas.

The speaker might choose to finish this sentence, “I remember when (groom’s name here) was a little boy, he always …” or answer this question, “When was (insert bride’s name here) at her silliest?

Of course, watching the bride and groom push cake into each other’s mouths is a long-enjoyed tradition, but there are many more fun – and less messy – activities to consider as well.

One new option that’s gaining popularity is to have cupcakes instead of a cake. Cupcakes are decorated in alignment with the wedding theme, just as a cake is, but the cupcakes are instead arranged on tiered cake plates and displayed on a cake table until it’s time to eat them. The cupcakes can be simply handed out on plates to each wedding guest.

Now, what’s fun about using cupcakes instead of a whole wedding cake is you can save money, certainly, as many reception halls and caterers charge a per slice fee to cut and serve the wedding cake, but you can also build activities into the cupcake presentation.

A small charm or tiny toy can be baked into the cupcake. Whoever gets the charm wins a special prize. These prizes can range from a gift basket or gift certificate to a restaurant to a dance with the bride or groom.

Some brides like to use a Southern tradition and have charms baked into the wedding cake. Similar to the idea above for cupcakes, this involves baking small charms or tiny toys (but usually charms) into the cake. You might even consider having charm bracelet charms baked into the cake, which are then made into a charm bracelet for the bride.

Not everyone enjoys cake. How about an activity for those who won’t be eating cake? They can be required to do the “Macarena” or the chicken dance during the time when everyone else is eating cake.

In keeping with the dance during cake theme, how about a requirement that in order to get cake, a guest must perform an impromptu dance first? Or there could be trivia questions about the bride and groom or about popular culture. Guests must correctly answer the questions before getting their cake.

Many people believe that once the cake is cut, they are free to leave if they wish. Since cake cutting usually comes after the meal and after dancing and other traditional celebration activities, many people take the opportunity to leave the party after the cake is cut and enjoyed.

If the bride and groom want their guests to stay after the cake is eaten, it is worth some extra effort to build some activities into the cake-cutting event so people will stick around longer.
For example, each person could receive a slip of paper with his or her cake. These slips of paper could be prepared ahead and provided to the catering company with instructions that one folded strip of paper be placed on each plate with the cake.

Making a game of who gets the centerpiece, then, can be an amusing diversion and one many guests will enjoy participating in. Here are some ideas for giving away that reception table centerpiece.

How about a game of 20 questions? The MC or DJ asks a series of 20 questions, but first gives the guests the basic background information, that is, that the answer is an animal, place, person or thing. The game is repeated until one person at each table has won the centerpiece.

One of the most popular ways brides give away the table centerpieces is to put a number on the bottom of the centerpiece and give each guest a number. At some point in the evening, a number is called, each guest checks his or her number and whoever has the called number gets the centerpiece.

For example, you might provide each table with a number, but make it a lower number (ie. between 1 and 10) and the DJ or MC could move from table to table and have each guest do something a certain number of times. So, at the first table, for example, the guests might need to do “head, shoulders, knees and toes” six times and whoever does it first gets the centerpiece. Or, at the second table, the guests might be required to sing the alphabet 3 times or sing “twinkle, twinkle, little star” three times and whoever does that first get the centerpiece.

Another fun activity for divvying up the centerpieces is to require guests to produce a certain item. The DJ or MC moves from table to table, announcing what guests at that table will be required to produce in order to get the centerpiece. Whatever it is, the guest at each table who produces the requested item will get the centerpiece.

Perhaps you could create an activity where the person who has the strangest talent (as voted on by the tablemates) wins the centerpiece.

If you like musical chairs, you can play a game of musical dollar bills in order to give the centerpiece away. Someone takes out a one-dollar bill and music begins playing. Everyone at the table passes the dollar bill around the table and when the music stops, whoever is left holding the bill gets the centerpiece. That person can then be awarded with the centerpiece.

Some fun, and fairly traditional, ideas include the birthday person getting the centerpiece. At each table, the person who has a birthday closest to the wedding gets the centerpiece. Or if there are married couples at the table, the couple who have been together the longest can get the centerpiece, or the couple who were married most recently.

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. 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.

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.

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 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.

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.