Everyone wants their wedding to be a fantastic event that their guests rave about. Well if you really want your wedding to be terrific, first you have to keep the needs of your guests in the front of your mind. Learn how to score big points with your wedding guests and make your wedding the event of the year.
Keep the Booze Flowing: There is no getting around it: people hate a cash bar. You are guaranteed to hear some grumbling from your guests if you make them pay for their own cocktails. And no, they do not care how much an open bar will cost you. After all, they had to take time off of work, pay for travel and a hotel, buy a new outfit and jewelry for the wedding, shell out for a wedding gift, and so forth. Besides, you could have opted to elope. So if you want your wedding to be a success, you have to host the bar. Period.
Keep the Lines Moving: One thing that is guaranteed to aggravate wedding guests is long lines for food. I have seen a number of weddings that have terrible bottlenecks at appetizer stations during the cocktail hour. And woe to the guests who are last in line, because the spread might be completely picked over by the time they get to the end of the ridiculously long queue. Make sure that your cocktail hour is designed for success. Have a combination of passed hors d’oeuvres and stations spread around the room to avoid logjams. And be sure to order enough food! The line rule also applies to the coat check room and valet parking; hiring enough attendants is the key to keeping waiting time to a minimum.
Keep the Food Recognizable: If you are a “foodie”, you might want to show off your culinary knowledge by featuring a number of specialty dishes at your wedding. Your guests, on the other hand, want to eat things that are familiar. It’s fine to have some specialty or ethnic dishes at your wedding, but also include a good variety of more recognizable items on the menu. This is particularly true for the main course. And it would be courteous to have decent options available for your vegetarian guests or those with food allergies. That is not to say that you need to take dinner orders from each guest, just have enough variety that those with special restrictions can pick and choose some things to eat.
Keep the Timeline Reasonable: Is there anything worse than a wedding with a huge gap between the ceremony and the reception? Or the evening reception where dinner isn’t served until after your bedtime and you are falling asleep over your entree? Try to keep your wedding day timeline under control. Avoid long gaps between the ceremony and reception if at all possible; it is just no fun to be all dressed up in an elegant dress with your best jewelry and gorgeous but uncomfortable shoes and have to kill three hours in an unfamiliar town. One final tip: if you will have elderly guests in attendance, schedule the cake cutting fairly early in the reception so that they will feel free to go home at a reasonable hour. Thoughtfulness always scores major points with wedding guests.
Bridget Mora writes about wedding planning, style, and etiquette for the clients of Silverland Jewelry. For the best selection of Swarovski crystal, pearl, and cz jewelry for weddings, visit www.silverlandjewelry.com today.