How can we make our wedding a communal event?

August 24, 2016 12:23 PM

The best weddings (to me/us) seem to be the ones where the couple's tribe is invited to participate in some way. We'd love ideas for how to make this happen.

After mostly coming to terms with the cost of our wedding, we are excited to plan a memorable event.

We'd like to incorporate our people wherever possible. That doesn't necessarily mean asking them to contribute to the execution of the event (although we will do this, too). How can we make our event feel communal and incorporate our tribe?

Here are some things we're already planning to do:
- This
- Handwritten notes to each guest/couple thanking them for coming and sharing a specific memory of that person/couple
- Purchasing Trader Joe's flowers the day before and inviting family and friends to help arrange the day before the wedding

Thoughts/ideas? If it helps, our wedding and reception will be a bright, colorful spring brunch event at an art gallery with about 80-90 people. Thanks so much!

posted by brynna to Society & Culture (30 answers total)

i just got back from a wedding that involved a LOT of toasting, and an afterparty 'talent show'/karaoke situation. it was pretty terrific, and had a very participatory feel.
posted by entropone at 12:41 PM on August 24, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks! To clarify, we are looking for more "communal" vs. "participatory" - I would put toasts in the category of "communal," since they can be somewhat more meaningful, and karaoke would be "participatory." Fun, but not honoring community, necessarily.

On edit: I think we'd like ideas for both :)
posted by brynna at 12:45 PM on August 24, 2016

Friends of mine did that photo-as-table-card thing, even going to the trouble to find a photo of the guest with at least one member of the couple, and it was lovely. It was a tiny photo in a little frame and the only wedding favor I've ever kept!

They also dragged us all up to the top of a mountain in the rain for the ceremony, which means we can all hassle them about it for the rest of their lives.

On update, I'm not sure I 100% understand your concept of "communal vs. participatory," though. Karaoke seems at least as communal as flower-arranging.
posted by mskyle at 12:48 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

I've been at a couple of weddings now where the wedding photo booth rental thingy did this quite nicely. Photo booth with props. Pics are taken, pics are immediately posted by everyone to their facebook, other pics printed out and shared, scrapbooks made, etc., etc. Everyone gets to act silly, everyone has something to do other than eat, drink, or dance -- big hit each time.

There are enough rental outfits out there, all easily googled. Cost is a few hundred, I think? Maybe that's a lot, but in terms of bang for your buck, it's a lot of bang.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:57 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm attending a wedding in a few weeks where guests have been asked if we'd like to play an instrument during the processional and/or bake a pie for the dessert table. They are also hosting an event on the evening before the wedding where guests can travel in groups from hotel room to hotel room where the couple's families are staying to meet and mingle with them. I think the idea is that each family member will be hosting a unique snack/drink in their room and the guests can share stories/get to know the family.
posted by DuckGirl at 1:05 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Obviously you have to know your crowd, but any sort of communal participation would be very uncomfortable for my fiance and I, as we are super shy.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:07 PM on August 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

We did a Instax guest book instead of a full-blown photo booth, and empowered my nieces and nephews (age range 16-25) to make sure that everyone was photographed and wrote in the book. I like it better than the photo booth because we ended up with physical photos that day and we were sure everyone got their picture taken.
posted by cabingirl at 1:08 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hit post too soon but wanted to say, I was warned off TJ's flowers for my own wedding where we did our own arranging. You never know what they'll have on hand that day. Maybe that's cool with you, but if you want a specific type of flower, consider buying in bulk from a florist.

I made my family and friends arrange my flowers the day before too, and it was not relaxing or communal. It was "holy crap the wedding's tomorrow and here's the list of things not done yet."
posted by cabingirl at 1:12 PM on August 24, 2016 [10 favorites]

After the ceremony we took a big group photo with all of the guests. We included a copy of the photo with the thank you cards.
posted by wsquared at 1:19 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Dessert tables; either cake or pies! In my cultural tradition these take the place of a wedding cake; and usually it's old school, very labor intensive family recipes for amazing tortes. I've also seen this done with pies for a very New England preppy wedding.

I have seen a cookie table as well, but that was mostly for a December wedding, where we brought cookies, which were nicely set up by the caterers, and then were told to fill up boxes with various holiday cookies as our party favors as the wedding wound down.

I like it because it feels like your contributing to the wedding, but not actually getting in anyone's way, and one cake per family unit/friend group is sufficient cake for everyone. Also MULTIPLE FANCY CAKES!


+1 to arranging flowers is not relaxing or communal. both times I've been part of that (as part of the wedding party) it's just another thing that sets people on edge. Also it can be a surprising amount of work.
posted by larthegreat at 1:26 PM on August 24, 2016 [10 favorites]

The flowers thing...gah. Even if the couple is totally chill about it, arrangements do take a bit of skill.

You might consider a group art mural for your home. People may not want to do that in their wedding finery; you could do it at the rehearsal or after party.
posted by 26.2 at 1:45 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I did the flowers thing at my wedding out of necessity and it turned out great, but that was just because the people who were doing it happened to like it and were good at it. It was in the context of a pre-party party also, so people were happy and relaxed and not worrying about all the other stuff they had to do. So it happened to work out. I would warn you against giving people too much work to do though - it's all in the planning.
posted by bleep at 1:46 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Update: did the flower arranging for my sister's bridal shower and it was light and relaxing because we are a crafty family that enjoys that kind of thing. Will keep in mind to keep it short, optional, and not "chore-y!"
posted by brynna at 1:48 PM on August 24, 2016

I've posted about this in other wedding threads but one thing we did at our wedding that everyone loved was that instead of a guestbook, we bought a Lego house and put a sharpie and some of the bigger pieces into a bowl. We had the guests sign the pieces and we used them afterward to build the house. We even bought a child Minifig off eBay for my stepson so that he could put himself in the house.

Now that we are having a baby, my husband has found a baby-sized Minifig and my stepson will enjoy adding brother to the house once baby is born. It's a nice little keepsake.
posted by ficbot at 2:12 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

At my wedding (about 75 guests), which was outdoors, we had a toasting circle after the ceremony. People stood in a rough circle, and then we passed around a bell. Anyone who wanted to offer a toast or share a memory could ring the bell when it reached them; if they didn't want to, they could just pass it on. It was sweet, even though I don't remember many of the toasts. My sister-in-law and her husband did the same at their wedding three years later in the same venue.

We also did the bouquet toss as a hot potato (we had a lot of single guests who were horrified at the idea of getting married any time soon) and rigged it so that the music would stop when my best man or his girlfriend wound up with the bouquet....
posted by brianogilvie at 2:23 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, and on every table we put a cheap disposable camera, so that guests could take candid pictures and then just leave the cameras for us to develop. Since everyone seems to have a camera or cameraphone these days, you can probably work out some kind of social media equivalent. It was fun to come back from our honeymoon and see the wedding through our guests' eyes!
posted by brianogilvie at 2:28 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just got back from a wedding where the bride and groom invited everyone out for drinks at a causal place the night before, and went around introducing their various groups of friends and family to each other. This was really great as when we went to the actual wedding itself, it was like we had even more friends there!

Granted, this was a destination wedding so basically everyone was from out of town, but it was super chill and fun to meet my friends' friends and hang out with them.
posted by sutel at 2:47 PM on August 24, 2016

With the invitations, send a paper/fabric flag for the guest to sign/note/best wishes/etc and mail back with the RSVP. String them all together into a pennant-string decoration. You get to choose the paper/color. This won't work if your people aren't the kind of people who actually send in RSVP cards.

(and yes, throw a welcome party the night before the wedding, not just a rehearsal dinner for close family) ooh! have the flags at the dinner night for people to sign last-minute and put on the string for you!
posted by aimedwander at 2:55 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Lots of good suggestions so far! We did two things at our wedding that went over really well. The first was a ring warming, where we passed our rings around during the ceremony so our family and friends could pray, bless or give happy vibes as they wanted to (we had a religious ceremony but I wanted to be inclusive as much as possible). The second was community vows. My spouse and I made specific commitments to our family and friends, and we asked them to support us in specific ways. I wanted everyone to know how much we loved having them there to support us and we still get comments about how appreciated those things were.
posted by snowysoul at 3:01 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Near the beginning of the ceremony, our officiant asked each person to briefly hold our rings (tied together with ribbon) and put their well wishes/good vibes/etc into them. The rings passed from person to person and then were brought up to us for the marriaging part of the ceremony. An alternative version of this is people can say something, a well wish, etc, (or choose to pass and just silently squeeze their love into the rings) while they are holding them.
posted by latkes at 3:01 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oops, jinx.
posted by latkes at 3:01 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Are there kids? I bought a dozen little cotton dresses in different sizes and some ties.
Any kid that wanted to be in it could. I told them when they got there and they changed before the "ceremony". We gave them flower petals to throw and they marched through the garden and led me to the groom. It was chaos and fun.
I think they all loved being involved.

I wanted to (but had a problem getting our family photos) do one of those slide shows on the wall in the "bar". I visited a couple of my husbands close relatives and took pictures of their pictures...their old wedding pictures, funny kid pics of cousins and friends, etc. I wanted the slide show to be everyone...it really wasn't just about us two.
posted by ReluctantViking at 3:06 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

At weddings that I've officiated, we've done a community vow and a communal pronouncement, and people really seem to like it a lot. It goes like this:

Now, as members of N and M's community of family and friends, let’s also make a vow.
Will we support N and M in their marriage?
Will we uphold them with encouragement and wise counsel,
and help them always to remember the vows they’ve made today?
If you’re so moved, say “we will!”

[Everyone says "We will!"]

Now, on the count of three,
let’s all together say the words
that will begin N and M’s married life together:
'we now pronounce you married.'
1...2...3...

[Everyone says "We now pronounce you married!"
They kiss as everyone cries happy tears.]
posted by ottereroticist at 3:20 PM on August 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

(If you're going to do the ring blessing thing, remember that it can take a while for the rings to make it all the way around the room. I would advise against open-ended speaking of ring blessings unless you have a fairly small and patient group. Instead, you could have music or a reading while the rings are being passed around.)
posted by ottereroticist at 3:24 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Instead of the "speak now or forever hold your peace", we had everybody cheer to "Who thinks this marriage is a good idea?"
posted by Ms Vegetable at 3:56 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

We did a ring warming at our ~50 guest wedding. I'd say it Took less than 5 minutes to make it around the room for people to do a silent wish/ blessing. Lots of people said they really liked it.
posted by missriss89 at 4:03 PM on August 24, 2016

Also, we served our cake (well, dessert choices) ourselves. I don't know that everyone else enjoyed it, but it was a relaxed way to get to say hi to everyone in attendance without doing an awkward receiving line.
posted by missriss89 at 4:05 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is HUGELY a "know your crowd" kind of thing.

Like, I would 100% love to make all the preparations and decorating for our wedding more communal, but I don't share the same taste with most people in my family, none of them are very crafty, etc. I also know that if I just arrived with a bunch of flowers and was like "OK MAKE FLOWER ARRANGEMENTS NOW!" it just wouldn't get done.

That said, the way I have done this is to ask specific people with specific talents to do specific things that I know they would be comfortable with. My college best friend is baking our cake, and her husband, also a longtime close friend, is our (very low key) photographer. Longtime friends of my fiance are hosting our wedding in their backyard. My mom cares more about fashion than I do, and would have been heartbroken if I went with my first instinct and just ordered something white and festive from Modcloth, so I entrusted her to help me find a wedding gown we could both live with. My brother is also planning a wedding right now, so I have hit him and his fiancee up for tons of advice about logistical stuff. We will be asking a friend of ours (not quite narrowed down yet) to officiate, as well. This all feels much more participatory to me than just surprising everyone with a bunch of unspoken expectations that they may not want to or be able to live up to.
posted by Sara C. at 4:52 PM on August 24, 2016

We asked people to bring their very favorite food, and the recipe, as their gift to us. People still talk about the food as the best wedding food ever, 11 years later. We had everything from ceviche to Martha Stewart's really complicated Mac n cheese.
posted by purenitrous at 6:26 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Having people participate more means you're asking more from them. Pick the ones you feel comfortable of asking favors of and ask for things in the their expertise. I asked for a lot for my own wedding -- it didn't occur to me to talk to florists and bakeries and I probably couldn't have afforded it anyway. I had family make cobbler (not a cake person), do flowers (it was completely open-ended and my sister chose some pretty potted flowers), make my dress (with more input), rent chairs, and choose trays of food to eat. I pretty much stuck to immediate family for these requests, who I was okay asking a lot from, and didn't worry too much about what kind of flowers there would be or what kind of food to eat, beyond the "does sushi and fruit trays sound good?" that my MIL asked.

Or, alternately, go for something big (but done before or after the wedding) like a wedding quilt. My spouse and I did ask for a quilt -- mailed out a square to work on and some fabrics to use or not on it, and got back amazing and fun squares from friends and extended family. It was asking for a fair bit, especially on the part of the parents collecting the squares and actually making it into a quilt for us, but lovely to have on our bed.
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:12 AM on August 25, 2016