by Jean Knill

Created on: December 19, 2010

For the couple planning a wedding these days there are lots of headaches. Even if the budget is unlimited, there can be a risk of overlooking and upsetting someone who is left off the guest list. If attendees have to travel far, there is the problem of having appropriate reasonable accommodation offered close enough to the festivities. Sometimes close family would rather not get into their cars to go home afterwards, preferring to be able to drink alcohol and let their hair down on the very special occasion.

Gone are the days when the reception could be a buffet or sit down meal with space for dancing, and guests leaving some time after the bride and groom were seen off in a car dragging horseshoes and noisy tin cans behind it. You are more likely to be saying goodbye to everyone at breakfast the next day.

If the wedding is in the morning, people need to be fed twice, perhaps with a sit down meal as a late lunch, and then a buffet in the evening. If the budget doesn’t stretch to providing all the drinks, the reception premises should be licensed to sell alcohol and have bar areas available.

So if there is a long stretch of time to be filled before bed time, what kind of activities should be filling it? Here are a few ideas that incorporate the traditional plus the new trends.

1.  Serve special drinks like fruity Pimms to get off to a good start. Have some soft drinks available too. When you can’t all go straight away to sit down to eat, those who had really early starts to get there on time could be feeling hungry. So put out some small snacks and appetizers where they can help themselves.

2.  Consider choosing premises with small screens that can run DVDs and slide shows of the bride and grooms childhood, single life and courtship. If you have a tame techie who can transfer the photos quickly, you might even be able to get the wedding ceremony shots in there too.

3.  Turn your room and table decorations into conversation starters. Hand out a quiz to which people have to find the answers somewhere in the reception room. Have the décor themed around something dear to the newly married couple.

4.  If you want to have flowers on the tables, instead of having small, low bunches, use tall thin vases for extravagant arrangements above the heads of your sitting guests. They don’t even have to be real these days, as quality artificial ones look just as good. You can prepare them a week ahead and they still won’t wilt.

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