Are you having an “East Coast Style” reception with dancing FIRST?
A lot of American wedding receptions follow this formula: a grand entrance followed by a meal, speeches, and finally dancing. But in what’s been dubbed an “East Coast Style” reception, dancing happens right away with intermittent boogie-ing down between meal courses, too! It sounds pretty rad to me and gets everyone out of their seats and into mingle and mix mode right away.
Give your guests face time with cardboard cut-outs of your gorgeous mugs
When you’re determined that everyone at your wedding can get some real face time with you, employ the use of some fakes! Yep, we’re talking cardboard cut-outs of your mugs for use in photos, on the dance floor, and just for general fun.
Brianne and Dale had big cut-outs of their faces looking hilariously stern that were passed around so that everyone could get a little one-on-one with the newlyweds.
Check out this gender-neutral “love for everyone” alternative bouquet toss
Julia and Ben had a wedding in Berkeley with a taco buffet, sangria, homemade beer, and rainbow bridesmaids. But one detail we (and the bride!) hardcore loved was her “love for everyone” alternative bouquet toss. It was inclusive, full of sentiment and gratitude for everyone, and just a rad way to celebrate the guests without weirding anyone out with categories or gender or single/married people. Want to hear about it? Here’s what Julia told us about it…
Bring the celebratory drama with a wedding ceremony balloon drop
Okay, so this idea will only work for certain venues, but when it does work, it’s EPIC. Alisha and Jennifer’s glittery unicorn wedding featured an actual real live ceremony balloon drop! It’s the biggest “confetti” ever. Plus, you can coordinate it with your theme: rainbow, black and white, marbled balloons, metallic balloons… anything goes.
Ask your parent to “support you down the aisle”
Even though having my father escort me down the aisle was one of my favorite memories from my first wedding, the second time I got married, I felt it was important to not make A Big Deal out of the processional. I thought I’d either walk down the aisle alone — an independent woman making her own life choice — or walk down the aisle with my partner, like no biggie.
Either way, no one was “giving me away” this time. That was for sure.
Then two things happened…
A bucket list guestbook to collect ALL the adventurous ideas from your guests
Caitlinn and Luke included a really fun way to collect adventure and travel ideas from their guests: a bucket list guestbook! They provided paper and pens for guests to write down whatever they thought they should add to their bucket list: travel ideas, adventures, date nights, philanthrophic goals, etc. We figured we’d see what kind of bucket list guestbooks we could find out in the wild that you could snag for your own wedding guestbook purposes. Here’s what we found…