Introduction

Last month I talked about the various things that go into a guest’s experience of your wedding: sensory things like taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell, and experiential things like the memories evoked, conversations, and the joy of watching you tie the knot. I discussed, in a general way, how you might use different elements of your wedding to build an experience for your guests. But how do you go about accomplishing a specific goal? Let’s say you want to blend your families, creating a cohesive whole from the two sides of your family. How might you go about achieving this? Here, I’ll give you some specific strategies to help knit your families together. Alternatively, for some couples, it’s all about the party. I’ll also talk about some ideas that will help you accomplish this. Finally, we’ll talk about creating a luxurious experience for your guests.

Blending Your Families

Seating

In general, I don’t recommend open seating. This is one occasion, though, when open seating would actually work against the atmosphere you’re trying to create. To encourage people from both families to talk to one another, you need to have roughly half of the guests at each table from one side of the family, with the rest of the guests at that table being from the other side. Most people are unlikely to do this on their own – we all gravitate to the familiar. You’ll have to provide a seating chart to integrate your families. You could also mix up the sequence of guests around the table if you like with place cards, but it’s not really necessary. People are likely to at least make small talk with the others around the table. If you want to take that further, though, you’ll need to do more.

Directing the conversation

If people from both of your families are going to connect with each other, they’re going to have to do more than small talk. You want them to open up, and to talk about something deeper than how they’re related to one of you. This is where conversation starters can be helpful, asking questions that provoke more thoughtful discussion about their respective families. You could do this in a couple of ways. You could include the questions on cards at each place setting. (There’s no need to come up with hundreds of questions; ten or twelve will work, since you can repeat them at each table.)

Party on!

If your idea of a great wedding reception is having a truly epic party, you’ll take an entirely different approach. Your biggest weapon in creating a party atmosphere? Your DJ (or band leader). You’ll need to take care when making this choice, because it could make or break your party. You want someone with a proven track record of getting people out on the dance floor. Get referrals from friends and family, and check out candidates’ reviews. See if you can observe them in action at another event; that will help you decide if their style works with your crowd of friends.

Other ideas

After choosing a DJ or band, it’s time to select a few other things that will help to get the party rolling. People will need something to do instead of dancing at least some of the time… A good rule of thumb is to have something changing every 45 minutes to an hour during your reception. You’ll probably do this naturally by doing a couple of games or your bouquet and garter tosses a while after the dancing starts. A photo booth could also be a good idea, as could late-night snacks. (Sliders and fries? Cookies and milk? It doesn’t really matter what it is; you just want to help offset all of the alcohol consumption.) Bringing snacks out creates another lull in the action, which keeps people interested in the reception. Finally, if you think your friends will be up for more action after the reception ends, you might plan on an after-party somewhere to keep the festivities moving.

Creating a luxurious experience

Decor

When your goal is to create a luxurious experience, your decor and personalization  choices will be paramount. This is true for both your ceremony and your reception. It helps to create a single show-stopping element for your ceremony, and either reusing it or creating a second for your reception. You have many choices here. Your planner can help you create a custom backdrop for the ceremony. Sometimes these can be reused, say for a photo backdrop and/or reusing it behind the cake table. Some other ideas for your reception are a champagne wall, an elaborate seating chart, or an over-the-top favor display. I am always thrilled with the opportunity to design something of this sort, so don’t hesitate to share any ideas you have with your planner. We’d love to bring them to life!

When making other decor choices, you probably don’t want to go with the standard options provided by your venue or caterer. There are many elevated options for chairs, tables, and linens, all of which will go a long way to creating a luxurious experience for your guests. You also have almost unlimited options when it comes to tabletop decor: custom flatware, china, glassware, candleholders, and large or elaborate centerpiece arrangements will add to the luxury. Again, your planner is your best resource in creating the atmosphere you want.

Guest count

Where does the money come from for all of these custom choices? Well, if you don’t have an unlimited budget (which is most of us), you’ll have to offset your costs somewhere. The easiest way to do this is by reducing your guest count. This article does a wonderful job of demonstrating the options you can provide when you lower the number of people you’re hosting – check it out! This will also give you the option of some smaller and potentially more luxurious venues in which to host your reception. (I’ll be profiling one of these in the coming weeks.)

Conclusion

As you’ve noted in the options above, you have many ways to affect the experience your guests have at your wedding. Unifying your families, throwing an epic party, and creating a luxurious experience for your guests are all possible – they all depend on the choices you make when planning your wedding and reception. If you would like help with creating any given experience for the guests at your upcoming wedding, please reach out to me. Buttercup Celebrations would love to help, and together we can create the celebration of a lifetime for you!