Words from those who have survived

Part of my daily routine is to lurk on the various wedding forums. Past and present brides have posted invaluable ideas about planning, execution and survival for all types of weddings. Here are a few ideas I hope to incorporate into our own partizzle:

1. "I was at a wedding this past weekend, and saw something I loved. After the opening and the dad "giving the bride away", the bride and groom stepped up on to the platform and the minister stepped down and put her back to us and performed the ceremony. It was nice to be able to really see the bride and groom during the ceremony and watch it all."

2. "Ceremony: We tried hard in our ceremony to make all of our guests feel included and the response we got was tremendous. The readings we found here on IB went over extremely well, and we've had many requests for us to post our vows because people loved them so much."

3. "Photos before ceremony: We only wanted a minimum of traditional posed shots for our parents, and we got them done in less than 45 minutes before our guests started to arrive. It was very relaxed, and the caterers kept plying us with water, so we were very comfortable."

4. " Wishing well ‘bird-cage’ – We put out the bird cage and people thought it was very beautiful, we also put out envelopes and pens, and people went nuts."

5. Wedding bingo - this an idea I think I first saw here on IB, but only remembered a couple of days before the wedding when the Mister said that he wished things could be more interactive for our guests. I designed and printed the bingo cards that night. Each of the nine squares had a task that the guests had to perform if they were to win - we had "kiss a member of the bridal party", "catch a marshmallow in your mouth", "do a jig (at an inappropriate moment)", "make a loud noise", "drop an Arnold Shwarzeneggar quote in conversation", "drink from one of the bottles of colored water and show us your tongue to prove it", "ruin a photo", "get your whole table to hum 'here comes the bride'", and "drop and give me ten!!". This was the hit of the night really - everyone got into it more than I thought they would, and we had people making loud noises, showing us coloured tongues, tables breaking out into humming tunes and people grabbing us for kisses all night. It really kept things on a constant level of energy and fun, even during the usually quiet times like dinner."

6. "The homemade photobooth was by far the biggest hit! I rented a deep red curtain back drop for very little, plopped my digital camera on a tripod, wrote out a few directions and filled a box with props and dress up. I got some weird looks when I explained the idea to some people, but on the day everyone got so into it. We also placed it off to the side, so people could get silly without the entire reception area watching. The pictures are incredible and everyone had so much fun with it!"