4 Ways to Ensure a Great Wedding Guest Experience ON your Big Day!
It is important to ensure you create a great wedding guest experience for those attending your wedding. Although the day is all about the two of you, you want your guests to enjoy your big day as much as you will! After all, these are all of your loved ones who are taking the time to celebrate YOU! Here are some tips on ways you can ensure a great guest experience ON your wedding day!
1. Prepare your guests for the conditions of your wedding
Tiffany Marie Photography
The weather can play a huge role in your guest experience on your wedding day, and although we cannot control the weather, it is important to think about the conditions of your wedding and how they can have an impact on your guests. Tent weddings and those with outdoor ceremonies especially have to factor in weather-related concerns. Going to be out on a hot summer day? Have sunscreen and bug spray available for guests to use in case they forget to prepare themselves in advance. You can also provide paper hand-held fans on the seats so guests can cool themselves while waiting for you to walk down the aisle. We’ve even seen ones that have programs printed onto the fans so it is useful for guests to know what’s to come! Having your ceremony or cocktail hour out on the lawn? Let guests know in advance so they can choose appropriate footwear, trust me no woman in heels wants to be sinking into the grass! Maybe you’re having a tent wedding in the fall? Remind guests that it will cool down at night and they should bring a sweater with them or you could provide little blankets for guests to use. No matter the season, always remind guests to dress appropriately for the weather and have options to provide them on the day of in case they forget!
2. Be sure to have appropriate food to drink ratio
Mandy Wright Photography
No wedding guest wants to feel hungry throughout the night, especially when guests are enjoying the festivities by celebrating with cocktails! You should always provide appetizers in some capacity during cocktail hour to tie guests over until dinner time. especially in the heat. The last thing you need to worry about is a guest who can’t make it through the rest of the night because they had too much fun with the cocktails and no food to keep the balance. Be sure to have dinner at a reasonable time, we suggest not going later than 7:00pm. Finally, a late night snack is always a great idea! There may be some guests who weren’t able to finish their full dinner with so much excitement going on, especially those who gave speeches. Other guests have been dancing the night away with you, and they have worked up an appetite again. For those who are drinking, it helps to absorb some of the alcohol before the transportation comes at the end of the night so guests can get home more safely.
3. Make time to speak to each one of your guests
Mandy Wright Photography
It is essential to make time to speak to each one of your guests. It makes them feel really special and everyone is going to want to congratulate you! This allows you to properly thank each one of your guests for spending the day celebrating you. You can do this by having a receiving line coming into your reception or planning to go table to table during the reception and a planner can help make sure that this gets worked into your timeline so no one gets missed!
4. Have proper timing for your speeches and dances
Sugar and Soul Photography
Speeches are an important part of your wedding day, but sometimes less so for your guests, as the speeches are mostly written for the benefit of the couple. We want to ensure your guests are able to stay engaged, so limit speeches to 3-5 minutes in length! You should also want to plan to have your first dance directly following the speeches so that you don’t lose your guests’ attention! It is a great way to make sure all eyes stay on you and then everyone can join you for the party portion of the night.
Mandy Wright Photography
We hope you found these tips super helpful for creating a great wedding day experience for your guests. Here are some other great ideas to wow your guests on your big day! We have so much knowledge about proper timing, conditions of weddings, how to make sure you’re hitting all of those important points to keep your guests engaged, and more so reach out to us here so we can handle those logistics for you! This way, the night is enjoyable for your guests and we can take the stress off you!
