What If My Wedding Is Boring? Structuring Your Wedding Night

Let’s talk about wedding structure. The order and timing of events is a crucial element to a successful night and overall guest enjoyment, so today we are going to go through some ideas and tips on how to keep things interesting purely with structure choices.

Your guests may be expected to be seated for several hours at a time, on a table full of strangers that they may not be overly fond of, or just not the talkative type in general. This can quickly lead to boredom and restlessness for some, and they will soon be looking for an excuse or means to leave your wedding as quickly as possible. 

But how do we avoid this? It’s important to keep your guests entertained. The good news is that you don’t need to book a circus performer or magician for a dinner show to do this. You don’t need any performers, for that matter. Keeping people entertained is mostly about timing. 

You work out all the timing of items in the “run sheet.” A run sheet is basically a schedule of all events during the night – when dinner is served, when speeches are, etc. A well thought out and properly planned run sheet can be key to a hiccup-free wedding, as well as making things pleasurable for your guests. 

Some points to consider:

• If you have a lot of speeches, it’s a good idea to break them up into segments. Do one round before dinner, and one after for example. People become less attentive if they have to sit there for an hour listening to people speak back to back. 
• If you delay all of the formalities or have too many, people will be stuck in their seats for too long again and feel restless and fidgety, so by the time the party music starts some may have departed already. 
• Conversely, if you kick off the dancefloor too soon people may tire themselves out early leading to an early finish. There is a sweet spot. 
• Having formalities like cake cutting, bouquet etc can have a bit of downtime beforehand. Once it is announced, some people will be coming back from the bathrooms or the bar, and everyone else is waiting for them to commence.
  People don’t like waiting – so it can be good to group some of these things together and complete them back to back while you have everyone present with their full attention. A common example of this is Groom’s speech, followed immediately by the cake cutting, and then straight into the first dance.  
• Some bride & groom games are a great form of laughter and entertainment, and cost nothing. 
• The physical layout of your wedding is important too. Guests want to feel included, not tucked away out of view or so far back they can’t see or hear anything. Try to position everyone so that they dont have to turn in their seat and look behind them. 

These are just a few examples. If you are planning your own run sheet, it is a good idea to consult your first draft with someone else who can point out things that might not be obvious to you. 

Work with your DJ and MC on this also, they will be able to give you some great insights and ideas on how to plan a great night for your guests to keep them attentive from start to the very end.