Looking for ways to go the extra mile and make your guests feel extra special on your wedding day? We are all about full-blown wedding experiences around here! And planning an experience-based wedding means diving into planning details that will immerse your guests in every touch point of your day. If you’re imagining a wedding day where guests interact, the dance floor is lit, and the vibes don’t stop until the final bites are served, we put together a fun list of ways to make your guests feel like the VIPs of your wedding day!
Introduce Your Guests to Each Other Ahead of Time
Nobody’s idea of a fun night starts out by walking into a room full of strangers, especially at a fab event like a wedding. What does make for an especially memorable night is one that drums up excitement in advance. One where guests can put the face to the name before hitting the dance floor. Aside from the awkwardness encountered when your guests walk into a room full of strangers is the strain it puts on you as the hosts of the evening.
Chances are you want to hit the dance floor, too. NOT spend the night walking around introducing your guests to each other while making sure everyone’s having a good time. There’s a super easy way to introduce your guests to each other ahead of your wedding day. One that doesn’t require hosting another pre-wedding event. It all goes down through your Guestie event! Here, each of your guests will have a simplified profile with a photo and a short note from you. Your Guestie event will allow them to meet one another beforehand while seeing how each and every guest is connected to your wedding. Aside from the virtual introductions, there are a whole bunch of fab & fun features to help you get the party started!
Use Personalized Photos For Your Seating Chart
Seating charts don’t have to be boring. In fact, before the kick-off of your reception, seating charts are a great focal point for your setup and decor. But, they are also a great meeting place! Think of it as a water cooler moment for all of those singles you tagged in your Guestie event. If you want to make your seating chart that much more amazing, grab the profile photos you used for each of your guests in your Guestie event and use them in the place of a standard escort card! It will be so unexpected for your guests to “find their face” on your searing chart. It’s another fun touch point to show guests you went the extra mile to make them feel special & included on your wedding day.
Want your wedding to be the best party you’ve ever hosted?
Click here for a full list of features & create your account today!
Food & Beverage Service is a Huge Part of Your Guest’s Experience
Food can be a deeply personal way of showing someone you care for them. Think about it, you probably have a favorite comfort food or childhood meal that always takes you back! Or maybe you have a grandmother or aunt that always cooks enough food to “feed an army”. Preparing a delicious, stuffed-to-the-gills meal is an “act of service” love language. One thing is for sure when the food *hits* at a wedding guests talk about it for years to come! Showering your guests with an amazing cocktail hour, wedding dinner service, dessert assortment, and after-party or late-night bites is a wonderful way of making them feel like velvet rope access VIPs!
Entertainment
We’re sure you already have a fab wedding DJ. One who knows how to keep the energy high and the bops coming all night long. But a full-blown entertainment experience at a wedding takes so much more than knowing when to drop high-vibe hits and when to slow it down. First, you want to know without a doubt, that each and every guest will hit the dance floor at some point in the night. Sound like an impossible task? It’s really not if you know what makes them move!
The whole paper & pen song request slips at each table is out. Here’s what’s in! Asking your guests for their song requests ahead of your wedding day. Getting their song requests in advance accomplishes a few things. First, it allows you to sort through them and rule out anything that doesn’t match the vibe of the night. Second, it allows you to pass them on to your DJ before the party gets started. With your guest’s song requests in hand, your DJ can create a more cohesive entertainment experience for all of your guests. Lastly, your guests are 1000x more likely to hit the dance floor when they hear their favorite song playing! You can take your guest’s song requests ahead of your wedding day through your Guestie event!
Take it To Go
If you’re skipping out on an afterparty for whatever reason, you can still bring the fun of late-night bites to your reception! But, if you can pack it up to go, even better! Late-night bites are a fab way to enhance your guest’s experience. After a long night of dancing until your feet hurt, who doesn’t love to chow down on some deelish comfort food classics?
Save your guests the obligatory late-night trip to the drive-thru and have some classic favorites on hand for them. Some of our favorite late-night bites to go at a wedding include wrapped cheeseburgers, paper cones stuffed with fries, pizza slices, warm pretzels, and pretty much anything that fits in a Chinese take-out box! Your wedding reception is only booked until a specific hour of the night. So giving your guests the option of taking their snacks to go is a great way to cap off the night before saying one last goodbye.
Want your wedding to be the best party you’ve ever hosted?
Click here for a full list of features & create your account today!
Ring Warming
Have you heard of a ring warming? It’s a fun way to include your guests during your wedding ceremony! Once your ceremony kicks off, your rings will be passed around (preferably in a small pouch!) for each guest to touch and infuse with their love. Allowing your guests to see and hold your wedding rings before your ring exchange takes place. The act of a ring warming is both poetic and physical. The idea is that your guests will silently hold positive thoughts over your marriage while holding your rings. Because your rings will be passed around from hand to hand, they will actually be warm once you are ready to place them on each other’s fingers!
If you’re having a larger-sized wedding you might not have time to pass them to each and every guest in attendance. Start with the first 2-3 rows of seating and go from there until your officiant has the rings called back. If you’re having a wedding with less than 100 guests in attendance, have your ring warming added to your ceremony timeline. This should allow time for each and every guest to wish you well. Your guests have been a part of your life up until this point and having them show their love in a physical way for the next part of your journey is a wonderful way to make them feel special on your wedding day.
Special Gifts
Did you happen to catch the couple who went viral for the epic gifts they curated for their guests? It was a moment taken right out of Oprah’s playbook! When the couple stood up to thank their guests during their rehearsal dinner, they surprised guests by letting them know a special gift was placed underneath each chair. What erupted was a sea of gift boxes filled with every designer name under the sun, personalized highball glasses, and oh so much more!
Now, we’re not saying your guests need some Gucci to make them feel special. But what we do love is the amount of care they put into making every box. Each gift was personalized specifically for the receiver, and created with their unique personality in mind. If you plan on doing the whole gift thing at your rehearsal dinner, skip the matching jewelry for the wedding party and go with something more specific to each individual!
Saying Thank You
Yes, thank you cards are still in! But, we’re not talking about your standard “thanks for coming” card anymore. No no. Couples are taking traditional thank you cards and making them far more personal and customized. So how do you take this very final element of your wedding day and make it special for each guest that was in attendance? First things first! Make sure anything you send out to your guests goes out in a somewhat timely manner. Ask the internet when wedding thank you cards should be sent to your guests and you’ll get a million different answers. However, we say anywhere from 1-3 months is an acceptable timeline.
Your thank you cards should hold a personal message to your guest past the stereotypical “Thanks so much for the fab gift!”. Messages of love & thanks should be more personalized. Like “We had so much fun with you on the dance floor singing along to Taylor Swift, it’s a moment we will never forget!”
Now that you have your timeline and a personalized message, what else can you add? Remember that amazing wedding photographer you hired? They spent your wedding day capturing each and every moment, even the ones you might not have experienced! A photo of your guest(s) included in the thank you envelope is a great way to show them how much their presence meant to you on your wedding day. Whether it’s a photo of them seated at your ceremony, side by side with you, or in a line at your wedding exit a printed 4×6 photo is a great final way to say thanks.
