How do I keep my wedding guests entertained?

How on Earth do you keep your wedding guests entertained?

Especially when you’re off having your stunning wedding photos shot or taking a tour of the room to thank friends and family?

Lets take a look at some great ideas to not only have fun at your wedding but make sure there are no flat spots!

Wedding games and prize draws

That’s where wedding games and prize draws come in. As a seasoned award winning Liverpool wedding photographer I’ve noticed over the last 15 years a steady increase in the amount of amazingly creative and fun games couples will organise for their guests at weddings.

Especially for those of you who have friends and family who’ve never met one another – wedding reception games are a fantastic way to break the ice – and even win some tasty boozy prizes!

Play these games in-between the breaks of your main wedding events or during the wedding speeches!

What games should we play? 

There are so many games you can play at a Liverpool wedding venue – from yard games in a sunny courtyard to rave bingo, quizzes, parlour games and table-top antics designed to entice all ages to get involved.

You can even hold a raffle or faux auction to bid on a series of joke items the groom or bride will likely now give up once they’re married! 

Mr & Mrs

This is a great game where you have the wedding couple sat with their backs to each other, they take off one shoe each and have questions asked about each other.  Either one has to hold of shoe up which tells the audience the answer to the question.  Like:

Q. Who is the best cook?

Q. Who snores the loudest in bed?

Bingo at the wedding breakfast

I’ve seen this done in a couple of ways, once were the best man gave a bingo sheet to each guest and ask questions about the bride and groom.  The answer was on the bingo sheet and I have to cross it off and get a line, corners or a full house.  And they win prizes at each point.

Name out of the hat

This is a really cheeky way of giving everyone a free drink.  Each guest has their name put in a hat and one name per table is drawn out.  Now you can either do it for real and keep the venue on side, not upset them.  Or you have a bunch of fake names in the hat and each one that is pulled out is on every single table.

The prize is a free bottle of champagne, whiskey, or anything that table may like. It’s a really cheeky way of giving every table a free drink.

Summer wedding ideas

For those of you wedding in the summer months, be sure to take full advantage of beautiful weather with a series of lawn games. Set up on the grass or patio for couples or groups, even for the kids, yard games like lawn darts, ring toss, giant jenga, giant connect 4 and boules are not only fun to play but can also act as an extension of your wedding theme.

There are plenty of wedding suppliers that have all these games, they often do packages and you can just get them to drop them off and they handle everything.

Hiring an ice cream cart is a really great idea for summer.  More often than not it’s the adults to get more ice cream and the children!!

Moving inside and as your glamorous guests are seating themselves for the wedding breakfast, there can often be a lot of chatter and quiet time before food is served. 

Keep your party’s minds away from their stomachs or any awkward moments by providing wedding table top games to encourage your guests to mingle and have fun.

Involve the entire wedding party

Now while table top games are a great way of getting tables to get to know each other, sometimes the best games are the ones that involve the entire wedding party!

One of the best ways of getting everyone involved is Best Man Bingo – a laugh a minute game hosted by the best man and featuring tidbits and facts about the happy couple. 

Swapping out numbered bingo cards for trivial answers, guests need to mark off the options they think are right before winning bingo! 

Suggestions for answers include Birth months, Instruments played, Tattoos, Sports teams, Odd talents and more! 

What should the prizes be?

For many of the weddings I’ve been at the bride and groom will often have a series of cute little gifts and prizes to give out to the winners – and even losers- of their games.

The best gifts are often miniature bottles of booze, hand crafted sweets and bigger prizes like gift vouchers, bottles of wine or beer for those feeling extra generous.

Don’t forget to add some booby prizes, they don’t have to be extravagant more often than not fun silly little prizes give the most giggles.

What about the runner up prizes/booby prizes?

Make sure you include a series of prizes for the runners up and, if you can, make sure at least every table wins a boozy prize like a bottle of vino they can share amongst their new found friends.

Having rewards and prizes helps stimulate gameplay, boosts the risk factor of participating and encourages as many people as possible to take part, meaning you’ll easily make sure everyone feels a close knit part of your extra special day.