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Weddings;
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Who's Important?: Basic Rule #6:
Continued...
So who's important in your wedding. We started this discussion here. And, it continues just below.
And, we joined the two families together during the reception.
You know the tradition of people are clinking glasses together to induce the bride and the groom to kiss?
Well, we told people they could only do that in this way:
If you wanted Erin and Chris to share a wedding kiss, you had to find somebody you didn't know before this wedding, introduce yourself, and join with them in "performing" a little love song or poem for the bride and groom and all the guests, before they clinked (We weren't too picky about quality, here!). Spoons and glasses were provided on a little table by the head table.
Then, when the bride and her dad, followed by the bride and groom, got up to dance, everyone in my family grabbed the hand of someone in Chris's family to form a circle around the pair. Everybody that wasn't grabbed just kinda joined in and started up conversations after the dance. It was like magic!
My husband came up with the join-the-families-together-piece-de-resistance, though. In our traditional wedding, the father of the bride was to give a speech after dinner. But he changed tradition a little and invited me and Chris's mom and dad up to join him, and we gave a combined speech to both of our children.
More magic.
We had traditions galore, old and new, peppered throughout the day, all of them reaching out to the people who were kind enough to join us in this celebration.
We paid attention to details, like asking guests on the invitations if there was any dietary restrictions they needed to observe, and like making sure that the guests had something to do in between the ceremony and the beginning of the reception.
Other details like providing cold red wine for dinner at a certain table where we knew the guests like their red wine cold instead of room temperature as is the norm.
This wedding was in Ottawa and a lot of people had to travel from other cities.
We made sure that we sent those people tourist booklets of Ottawa, pointing out sights to see and places to stay during their visit. We prebooked rooms at various hotels at a discount rate and told our guests about this on the invitations. We put up signs explaining things that might be confusing to some guests. We gave out the most detailed maps. We made sure that all venues were accessible to guests with special needs.
If you don't consider your guests when planning a wedding, don't invite any. (Ladders for eloping are relatively inexpensive!) If you are inviting guests, they should feel like they are a wanted, important part of this day, not just an afterthought.
Welcome them, make things as easy as possible for them. And, if you haven't had the chance as yet, see wedding invitations, the part about how your invitations should be a complete information package for your guests so they have absolutely no questions as to what is expected of them on the wedding day.
Get them involved, make your wedding different and detailed and your guests will think they are the most important guests ever.
It's been almost six years since this wedding was celebrated and to this day, people who attended come up to me and tell me what a loving, emotional and memorable occasion it was - what a wonderful time they had. Nobody felt like they just had to show up. Everybody felt that it was personal, special, not just like every other wedding. Everyone felt that they were important, more than just a guest.
And that, my friends, is what makes a memorable wedding.
Rule number 7 is... roll with it, and have fun!
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