Great Wedding Reception Activities
Great Wedding Reception Activities
The typical wedding reception consist of celebrating with the newly married couple, in dancing, eating and drinking with family and friends. But creative couples often enjoy coming up with fun games that include the entire guest list.
Interactive games can be a great way to have the guests interact with one another and get to meet each other, instead of them just sitting down quietly with the people they already are acquainted with.
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, they can serve as the MC for any activities. The MC will have a list of “wants” prepared before the reception. Everyone waits and listens for the command of what they are to do. For example, if the MC says he wants a person with painted toenails. Then all the women with painted toenails are to hurry-up and get to 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. It’s fun to also include something unexpected, like asking for a ’man with a black purse’; this will require a man to find a lady with a black purse that he can borrow, and then run up to the front of the room.
Another fun wedding reception game that includes all your guests is musical chairs, but using men as the chairs. The MC’s has all the men kneel on one knee to make a chair. The women begin playing the game of musical chairs, but when the music stops, they must find a knee to sit on. The elimination part of this game, differs from the original version of musical chairs, because people are eliminated when either the man falls down or the woman falls off his knee. Both are out either way, and if both fall down, they are also both out, 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 not 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. All the guest at the reception should be divided into two groups, you can use the typical counting system of: “1, 2, 1, 2″, until they are all either a ’1’ or a ’2’. Then the two teams group together to form a team for playing the game.
The DJ, or MC, will then ask the teams questions about the bride and groom. Teams will work together to come up the answer as fast as they can and then give it to the MC. The bride and groom will confirm if the answer is correct or not. This is an excellent way, for otherwise “unfamiliar” guests to get to know one another and have some fun in the process. It’s also an excellent way to get to know about the bride and groom!
Having fun interactive games during the reception, is a great way to get people to begin feeling more relaxed and help them to meet new people. 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. It doesn’t matter if you have a large reception or a smaller more intimate one; interactive games work well in all weddings.
Also, you do not need to worry about making someone feel uncomfortable or offending anyone with these games. Most people report to wedding planners they truly enjoy being more active and having fun games to play during a wedding reception.
Another fun interactive game, is one involving toasting; have toasts already written out and then pass out several toasts to each table, let the people at the table decide who will take turns in toasting the couple. You can find some funny weddings quotes to use for this, such as the one by Maryon Pearson; “Behind every great man there is a surprised woman”.
Another great quote is from the ever funny, Rita Rudner; ’I love being married because, it’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life’.