Everyone wants their wedding party to go with a bang not a whimper, here are five suggestions to ensure your night rocks
Words Libby Norman
As anyone who has organised a wedding knows, one of the major concerns is will people get on. While the good news is that they normally do, it never hurts to introduce icebreakers to encourage conversation and activities among your guests. Here are five of our favourite ideas to ensure your party goes with a bang, not a whimper.
1. Create a guest book
Once a wedding gets going, guests usually have plenty to say, but in the early stages you may be the only shared ground. This is especially true if you are grouping singles, people from your past, those who invited you to their weddings, and so on. Enter the guest book. Illustries creates designs that offer prompts, quizzes and all sorts of other ways to get people talking, reminiscing and – inevitably – poking fun gently at the happy couple. illustries.com
2. Get a photo booth
Photo booths have become wildly popular at weddings – and for very good reason. Young and old, strangers and friends, will happily squeeze in together and get their photos taken in a silly hat or mask. Since one of the chief pleasures of your wedding day is hearing how much fun other people had, this is a good way to see photo evidence. Megabooth offers booths built inside a vintage Mini Cooper and London taxis, as well as freestanding social media photo pods you can set up inside venues. megabooth.com
3. Order giant games
As above on the ice breaker front, except that giant games can be strategically placed around a venue – working particularly well in garden settings – and are a surefire way of engaging small children and their parents, and then everyone else who has a sudden passion for Jenga, Kerplunk, Scalextric or even rodeo riding. Sunshine Events offers a dazzling selection of games, with a team of fun experts to help you decide what’s most likely to get your party going. sunshineevents.co.uk
4. Hire a crazy band
Wedding singers sometimes get a bad press – there was that famous film – but a live act is still the tried and tested way to ensure everybody has a really good time. Lively and with a range of musical eras is the way to go when it comes to band selection. Expect any good outfit to have a set style and playlist – do listen to their music and also find out if they can take requests. Also trust their ability to pace the night. The wise voice of experience from brilliant ensemble The Brass Funkeys is: “Start with a bang and then keep ramping it up from there”. brassfunkeys.com
5. Have fireworks
A professional pyrotechnics company can deliver the bangs, crashes and whooshes that get everybody’s attention and make the magic happen. While traditional fireworks happen outdoors, pyrotechnics can safely be designed for indoors, so you can have a spectacular moment to mark the cutting of the cake, move onto the dancefloor or any other magical moment you choose. Le Maitre Events offer the works – from dry ice and dramatic flame effects to confetti cannons. They can also manage all the logistics of designing and firing something truly one-off – making it much more likely your chosen venue will give permission for a touch of the light fantastic to mark a beautiful wedding day. lemaitreevents.com
