Wedding Ideas

Reception

Rather than clinking glasses or singing love songs, the newest way to cue the bride and groom to kiss is to have guests answer trivia questions about the wedding couple, asked by the best man. If the guest gives a wrong answer, he or she must kiss someone instead!

Attention to detail will make a definite impression among your guests - one not soon to be forgotten. Create an atmosphere of luxury for the ladies. Place vases of fresh flowers, or elegant dried flower arrangements, in the ladies room. Add fragrant bowls of potpourri, heart shaped soaps in decorative dishes, perhaps candles if the venue will permit (votives safely contained in glass holders). Include a lovely basket filled with items such as hairspray, a container of safety pins, tissues, hair pins, and a decorative dispenser containing hand cream, along with other such convenience items as a courtesy to your guests

Assign someone to snap pictures of guests as they arrive at the reception using an instant or digital camera. After the wedding, sign each photo, add your wedding date, and included a short word of thanks to each guest for having attended. Mail the photos to the guests with along with your thank you cards as an extra special memento.

Before the toasts start, introduce each member of the wedding party with an anecdote or silly rhyme.

Ask your DJ to play a series of songs to salute the various generations attending the reception, starting with the oldest. Your DJ might announce this special dance and ask your grandparents, or great-grandparents, to start it.
Choose a song that they would remember from their younger days, or the one that was played for their first dance. Follow with the next generation, and so on.

After the bride and groom cut the cake and have the first slice, serve the bridesmaids cake with Victorian ribbon pulls.

Show bridesmaids video and a groomsmen's video.

Video about bride and groom's love story.

Follow the Victorian tradition of giving each guest a white ribbon favor before the ceremony. A modern-day option is to have the ushers present each guest with a white ribbon rose, either as a stem or a corsage/boutonnière, easily made with ribbon and a glue gun.

Brides with a knack for sewing may want to whip up coordinated bowties and aprons for the reception service staff

Use bows to "gift-wrap" tables. Create a large bow in the middle of the table, and then drape the ends of the ribbon to the floor.

Make a coffee table book with pictures of places that are special to the couple. Leave enough of a border around the pages to have people sign them. Then use these same places as the names of the tables at the reception.

Have a star named after you two and give everyone the coordinates

Have table names like: "believe", "faith", "love", "honesty", etc.

Have a "scavenger hunt" for the disposable cameras on each table. (ex., one of ours will be "Get a picture of the bridesmaid who goes to medical school")

Have the guests write a note to the bride and groom on small cards. (Make sure you use acid free paper and ink that is not water-soluble).

The couple writes down a bunch of "situations" on pieces of paper. Whenever they have to kiss, they drew one out of a hat. Anyone else who fits that situation (example: if you have ever spent a holiday with the bride, if you ever went to camp with the groom, etc.) had to kiss someone or stand up and blow a kiss to the bride and groom.

Have a special bridal toss for little girls and a groom's toss for the little boys. You could toss a bridal bear and a groom bear to them. That way, the bouquet and garter toss will be more special for the adults and the children have something, too.

Ceremony

Add ribbon streamers to each bridesmaid's bouquet for a romantic look. Tie each ribbon into several love knots, or tie miniature silver or gold bells to the ends of each ribbon for tiny peals of joy heralding your entrance.
Medieval brides believed that knots symbolized good luck, hope, and steadfastness, so their bouquets were tied with numerous knots. Continue the tradition by giving your ushers tie clips or cuff links adorned with sculpted knots, or adorn a ring pillow or kneeling pillows with silken curtain cording knotted at each corner and finished with tassels.

Rather than having the groom simply appear at the top of the aisle just prior to the ceremony, as is common in most Christian weddings, consider having him escort the bride's mother up the aisle in a quiet salute to the joining of the two families.

A romantic gesture made popular by Queen Victoria is to include ivy in the bridal bouquet. Afterwards, the ivy can be rooted and planted as a beautiful, living reminder of your bouquet. Green thumbs in Victoria's day would nurture the ivy, with plans to include cuttings from it in their daughters' wedding bouquets.

Write brief introduction about the bridal party in the program.

Place a vase of colored coordinated roses at the entrance of your ceremony site and invite each guests to place a rose in a arch made of greens before the ceremony.

The groom's boutonnière should be different from his ushers'. Imbue it with special meaning: to Victorians, a perfect rose accented with forget-me-nots and ivy symbolized steadfast love.

Pre-Ceremony

Give a present with a letter to the groom (delivered by someone else) while you are dressing.

The night before the wedding, write each other letters saying why you want to marry them. Then exchange them (via a bridal party messenger) and read them the morning before the wedding. If you're not seeing each other before the wedding, it'll be a good way to take some quiet time and focus on why you're getting married. And it will put you both in the right frame of mind.

Another Victorian gift idea, for the bride and groom to give to each other: two cedar trees, planted side by side in your garden. As the trees grow together, it is said, so will your love.

Make a flower "leash" for your dog and take pictures with it..very cute

Write a poem to your fiancé and put it in the ceremony program.

After the wedding

Make the bride's handkerchief into a baby bonnet for your first born!

Do-it-yourself cassette tape recordings of the reception speeches and toasts will make inexpensive mementos your parents will cherish. Add some of your own thoughts, thank-yous, and observations. Other versions could be custom- taped for elderly or out-of-town loved ones that could not attend the wedding.