One of our biggest wedding priorities was for us to have a lot of fun and for our guests to have a lot of fun! We wanted to accomplish this by always having something new and exciting happening and for there to always be something to discover. We worked really hard at planning our wedding and incorporating lots of little details. Afterwards and to this day, many of our friends rave about how fun our wedding was! Here’s our guide on how to have a really fun wedding!
1. It starts with the invitation
Your invitation is the very first glimpse of your wedding that people will get. A boring first glimpse is a sign that it’s going to be a boring wedding. We wanted our first glimpse to be something unique. Since Bassam proposed with a message in a bottle, we decided to send our invitations as a message in a bottle! It took a bit of research to figure out how to do this and one very long night rolling invitations and stuffing them into bottles, but in the end it was well worth it.
2. Keep the theme going with your guest book
The guest book is a great way to have some fun and inject a little creativity into the wedding. There are so many fun options out there {you can find a lot on our pinterest wedding board}. We wanted to keep the theme from our invitation going. We had a bottle painted with one of our favorite engagement photos and had a selection of cut up paper and twine for people to drop a message in the bottle. {Here’s a link to the amazing lady on Etsy who made it for us} We read all the messages on our first year anniversary.
3. Have a fun cocktail hour!
Cocktail hour is our LEAST favorite part of a wedding. It’s often so boring and you’re basically just killing time until the reception begins. We wanted to make sure people had something fun to do during our cocktail hour, so we had a photo booth set up. Some other ideas include:
- Set up a paint-by-numbers station. Give people a smock to wear so they don’t mess up their fancy clothes and a small square with numbers indicating what color to paint. When all the squares are put together, it turns into one of your engagement pictures!
- Hire dancers or musicians for the cocktail hour. This is a great way to also incorporate something you love like flamenco dancers or a specific genre of music.
- Instead of having passed appetizers, create a food station. Food is always more fun when you’re creating it yourself! Ideas include: taco station, french fry station, cheese and fruit…
- Have a DIY drinks station! Like a mimosa bar or have a selection of fun herbs and aromatics to add to drinks. If you have room in the budget, a mixologist to guide people’s creations and give mini lessons would be really fun!
- Encourage mingling and competition with giant lawn games! We really wanted to do this, but there just wasn’t room with our photo booth. Ideas include: giant jenga, giant chess, corn hole toss…
Other tips to a successful cocktail hour include:
- Keep it brief! Like an hour, max!
- Have lounge furniture set up so people can sit {women with uncomfortable heels will thank you!}
- Make sure there are plenty alcoholic AND non-alcoholic drink options available. We are always surprised to see how often water isn’t available at cocktail hours!
- Over order hors d’oeuvre so everyone can get some food. You don’t want to start the reception off with HANGRY guests! This is also a great time to let your personality show with things like mini tacos and mini snow cones!
4. Feed people early
There’s nothing worse than a wedding that takes forever to feed people. The biggest things that people remember from a wedding are the food and the music. So feed people early, give them plenty of food, and make it good food! We spent the majority of our budget on food for this reason. Since we knew it might take some time for people to get their main course, we had arabic appetizers laid out on the tables.
5. Give people something to do while they are eating
Dinner can often be really boring! Give people something to do while they are eating! We did our speeches during dinner so that we didn’t have to take up people’s time with listening to the speeches later. We also had books set on the tables so that our guests could leave us marriage advice. Some other fun during dinner ideas:
- Interactive dinner stations
- A show or performance
- Flash dance mob
- Karaoke
- Contests
- A video showing your love story
6. Add a fun spin to the major dances
When you’ve been to a million weddings, the traditional dances can get a little bit old. We didn’t want to do a funky dance for our first dance, but we did take dance classes so that our dancing would look a bit more polished than just us swaying back-and-forth. Lena and her dad started off with a traditional father-daughter dance, then went into some crazy dancing set to a montage of songs. It was a big hit!
7. Create stations or zones
We wanted to encourage people to spread out and have lots of discover within the wedding. We did this by creating different zones. Of course there’s the bar area, but we also had a cookie and tea station, a smores area, and a dessert bar set up. In addition, we hung framed quotes and pictures on a bunch of the trees. Not a lot of people noticed the frames, but the ones who did loved it!
8. Don’t give it all away too early, but do give a teaser of what’s to come
We wanted something to constantly be happening at the wedding and a lot of the activities were happening later in the night. We didn’t want to give it all away, but we did want to give people some idea of what was coming, so we skipped the traditional wedding program and created a list of the top 10 things to do at the wedding. We hoped this would help people notice what was available to them and also encourage them to stay later!
9. Provide a show
There’s only so much dancing your guests will want to do. It’s good to provide a break and give them a show to watch. We used the show as an opportunity to incorporate some of our traditions and culture. We had a belly dancer, traditional lebanese dancers, and sword dancers. Your show doesn’t have to just be dancers. Try to incorporate something that’s special to you as a couple. Did you see cirque du soleil on your anniversary? Get acrobats! Do you love going to piano bars? Hire dueling pianos!
10. Incorporate surprises
We had lots going on at our wedding! From a smores bar, to a round of shots with sparklers on the dance floor, there was always something happening. Although we provided a list of things to do, we kept some of the descriptions vague so there was still a surprise element. Also, we planned a few things that we didn’t tell people about at all. One of these things, was a surprise video for Lena’s mom. Lena’s mom LOVES the show Dancing With the Stars. We learned how to do a dance routine and filmed it to make it seem like we are on Dancing With the Stars. Then we played it at the wedding! It was a huge surprise!
11. Encourage people to dance
Wedding guests usually come of two varieties: those who love to dance and those who hate it. For those who love to dance, all you need to provide is some good music. For those who hate it, you may need some other encouragement. We passed around shots on the dance floor and that seemed to really liven up the mood! Also, toward the end of the night, we put on rave music and passed around glow sticks. People really seemed to have fun with that and we noticed a lot of our dancing hating friends danced all night! Finally, make sure YOU are on the dance floor. There’s nothing worse than partying without the bride and groom. We really believe that if you are having fun, your guests will have fun too.
12. Provide comfort
We’ve noticed a big factor in people’s wedding enjoyment is comfort. If something is uncomfortable, they have less fun. Since our wedding was outdoors, we provided heaters at each table. You may want to also provide scarves for women to wrap around themselves. If your wedding is inside, make sure the temperature is kept really cool so people aren’t getting too sweaty on the dance floor. Finally, we provided a basket of flip flops so people’s feet would be comfortable and they could dance longer! We got lots and lots of compliments on providing these!
13. Keep the food {and fuel} coming!
If you want people to stay late and dance all night, you have to keep them well fed! We hate when we leave a wedding and we are starving! So why not include a midnight snack as part of your timeline? We had a “comfort food” station full of truffle fries, mac and cheese, and grilled cheese. It was the perfect way to incorporate some more casual food that we love. We also think food trucks are a great idea and so much fun! You can usually get them to come by for an hour at not too high of a cost. Also, we had a late-night smores bar station. Basically, there was constantly food available at our wedding {and that says a lot about us as a couple!}
{Want more? Read about this couple who planned their wedding in 87 days from another state and had a great time!}
We love hearing fun ideas! What were some things you’ve seen at weddings you’ve been to? What’s made some weddings not-so-fun? Share your thoughts with us down below!
All photos are by: Jillian Rose Photography
Good ideas!
Thank you!!