Get guests involved in your wedding

What makes a wed­ding spe­cial and mem­o­rable is the peo­ple. The bride and groom of course, and the bridal party — but the joy of being sur­rounded by your clos­est friends and fam­ily will make your wed­ding perfect.

It’s not just on the wed­ding day that you can involve the peo­ple around you, but also in the wed­ding prepa­ra­tions. Get­ting cre­ative friends and rel­a­tives to help make invi­ta­tions, dec­o­rate the venue, pro­vide the wed­ding favours and bake your cup­cakes will mean your wed­ding is even more per­sonal, more mean­ing­ful to you as a couple.

I’m really happy to have been given some advice on this very sub­ject to share with read­ers of the Eng­lish Wed­ding blog. Julie Daw­son from The Wed­ding Genie has attended many Eng­lish wed­dings, and been involved in the prepa­ra­tions for many more. Nat­u­rally she’s picked up some fan­tas­tic ideas on the way.

This is an extract from Julie’s orig­i­nal arti­cle (link at the foot of this page)

Ask guests for wed­ding readings

Ask your clos­est friends or mem­ber of your fam­ily to read a poem or read­ing at your cer­e­mony. Civil ser­vices are the per­fect medium to per­son­alise your cer­e­mony. As long as the read­ings are not reli­gious it’s fine. If you trust the per­son you have asked to read you can always let them choose which makes a lovely sur­prise for you and your new husband.

www.WeddingBee.com

Alter­na­tive wed­ding guest book idea

Guest books are a great way of involv­ing your guests but why not do some­thing a bit dif­fer­ent. Have lit­tle cards like lug­gage type labels that your guests can write on and per­haps hang on a wish­ing tree. After you can col­lect them up and put them in an album.

What is a wish­ing tree?

Why not use a Wish­ing Tree? These are a great idea. You can make them from twigs which are arranged in clear vases, per­haps spray them gold or sil­ver, or the colour of your wed­ding theme. Use lovely lug­gage labels printed with wishes that your guests can write their own spe­cial wish for you and then tie them to the tree. You can also hire them if you are not cre­ative, or your florist can make you one eas­ily. An alter­na­tive is to use a Crys­tal Tree, which are very popular.

Wed­ding wel­come bags

These are a great idea to make your guests feel wel­come. If you are mak­ing a week­end of it and many of your guests are stay­ing in the hotel you can ask the hotel to place them in everyone’s rooms. You can fill them with lit­tle choco­lates, small minia­tures bot­tles of sparkling wine for ladies, red wine for the men, Can­dles, matches, tis­sues and hand­made bath bombs. Leave a lit­tle wel­come note thank­ing every­one for com­ing. It doesn’t have to cost a for­tune. You can source really good qual­ity items from eBay. It just takes time and effort.

Hand­made wed­ding favours

If you are hav­ing favours on the tables why not make them your­self if you have time. Per­haps lit­tle hand­made sweets. Minia­ture jars of jam or cook­ies. Edi­ble favours are prob­a­bly the best value as your guests will usu­ally eat them then and there and not leave them behind at the end of the evening. Wrap them in cel­lo­phane tied with rib­bon to match your theme and label them with a per­sonal mes­sage thank­ing your guests for com­ing. You can write the guests names on one side and the mes­sage on the other. That way you can save on place cards.

www.instantforever.com

Polaroid wed­ding photo gallery

To cap­ture the essence and fun of the day use a Polaroid insta­matic cam­era. Ask the best man and ush­ers to go round and invite your guests to take pic­tures of them­selves dur­ing the wed­ding. You will find there are some very inven­tive ways that your guests will show you how much fun they are hav­ing. Instant For­ever does pack­ages for this that includes the cam­era and guest book. A tip from the top is to source the cam­era from eBay; you can always sell it again after the wedding.

Your love story board

Think about dis­play­ing a story of your rela­tion­ship using pic­tures of you and your fiancé. Why not ask your friends to send you a pic­ture if they have one, of you and them. It’s a great way to involve your guests and a great talk­ing point. You can get them printed very cheaply and hang them up with minia­ture pegs on rib­bon. Per­haps put them in an area of your recep­tion where its a bit qui­eter and your guests can browse the pic­tures and chat whilst you are hav­ing your pho­tographs taken.

Ask wed­ding guests to sug­gest songs for the evening

When you send out your invites, ask your guests to send a note of their favourite dance track. That way every­one is sure to have some­thing they love danc­ing too in the evening.

Thanks once again to Julie from The Wed­ding Genie for this really help­ful arti­cle. This is only an extract: to read more of Julie’s excel­lent tips for involv­ing guests in your wed­ding day, visit her wed­ding blog.

Julie is a fab­u­lous source of infor­ma­tion for all things wed­ding, and her own web­site and blog are highly rec­om­mended whether you’re look­ing for advice about plan­ning a wed­ding, or more infor­ma­tion on wed­ding plan­ning ser­vices.

I also rec­om­mend you sub­scribe to Julie’s newslet­ter or fol­low her on Twit­ter!

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