How To Make Your Wedding Awesome
What Do You Want From Your Wedding Day?
When most couples are asked what it is that they really want from their wedding day, many couples answer with “I just want everyone to have a good time”. Of course you do!. You want to make your wedding awesome right? You are inviting your friends and your family to celebrate your love with you. You want to show everyone a great time and for everyone to have fun. So let’s look at exactly what you can do to help ensure everyone has a good time.
Let’s Define What A Wedding Is
So, what is a wedding? My definition of a wedding is a gathering of friends and family to celebrate the union and public commitment made between to people in love. It is important to understand one thing … you can get married without having a wedding. If you simply go to the registry office you can get married and choose to not have any celebration. The celebration is the wedding. It can be very cheap to get married, it can be expensive to have a wedding.
Since a wedding is a celebration, then essentially a wedding is a party! A celebration of your love. That is why most people say they want everyone to have a good time, because they realise on some level, that a wedding is a party.
What Adds Value to a Party?
So we have decided a wedding is a party. Now what adds value to you and your guests to a party? What is some of the factors that will make your wish of ensuring “everyone has a good time” come true? Let’s break down some of the elements of a typical wedding day.
Center Pieces
There is no doubt that beautiful center pieces on a table look impressive. I have seen them from elaborate and extravagant to simple and elegant. You know what? The initial impression on people as they walk in the room at the beauty of the styling is lost 5 minutes after they sit down. The center pieces quickly just become a part of the room. In fact, one of the most fun weddings I have ever been to didn’t have center pieces, instead on each table they had a game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos for people to play! They were a real hit and people talked about them, played with them and were entertained more than if they couple has spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on center pieces
.Wait … people were entertained by center pieces. Could it be that providing entertainment and fun is more important to guests than a pretty thing to look at?
Chair Covers / Fancy Vintage Chairs
Similarly to center pieces, people notice the chairs when they first walk into the room. Then after 5 minutes, remove their jackets and coats etc and hang over the back of the chairs, so that you now can’t see the chair anyway.
Wedding Cake
Having been to hundreds of weddings, unless you are having the cake served as dessert, I can tell you from experience that hardly anyone eats the cake. A few people at best. It is great to have a cake to do the cutting of the cake if you are into tradition, but does it really add much to your wish of showing everyone a great time?
Entertainment is the Key
There are so many elements that make up a wedding day, but when you stop and consider that you “want everyone to have a great time”, break each element down and ask if THIS element is going to have everyone having a great time. Is THIS the element that is going to make your wedding awesome?
It can be quite fun to form the sentence for each element as some of them just sound ridiculous –
“Everyone had such a great time, those chair covers really had people celebrating!”
“Everyone had such a great time, those center pieces really had people celebrating!”
“Everyone had such a great time, that cake really had people celebrating!”
Replace the item with every element of your day and then decide if that could fit into your vision of everyone having fun. If you can make something more entertaining and thinking outside the square (such as the Hungry Hippos games instead of center pieces), you are on the right track. People are there to celebrate. They want to be entertained. Give them what they want.
The one thing that does get people celebrating is the entertainment. This is such a crucial element of a successful day yet often the last considered and least budgeted for. Surveys have proven that entertainment is the absolute number one factor that is the make or break for the success of a wedding day, yet most people budget more for center pieces than they do the entertainment.
Don’t fall into that trap!
Realise what is important and don’t skimp on entertainment.
Make your wedding awesome!
Warmly,
Nik Reeds
