Unconventional Ways Of Doing Reception?

[Lia33]

Is everyone breaking up their reception in traditional ways? Meaning - intro of wedding party, father/bride dance, mother/groom, MOH speech, best man speech, garter, bouquet toss, etc?

 

Nothing wrong with these traditions, but I've never had a desire to do all of these things. I've gone to weddings where it just seems like they are checking off from a list of things to do for the reception. I would skip them all but it is good to have something to break up the reception a little, at least a little bit in the beginning. I know I won't be doing the garter thing and probably not the intro of wedding party. 

 

Does anyone have anything non-traditional that they are doing during the reception? Or any other ideas?

[calgarybride2015]

We aren't very traditional either.

To be quite honest I haven't put much thought into the 'timeline' of our reception other than the start and end times! lol

 

I do know we have decided against a bouquet and garter toss!    We have also been talking about combining the father/daughter and mother/son dances as neither of us really want to do them!! so we will combine them to get them over quicker   we almost thought about having them come out mid way thru our dance to just do them all in one song!  I don't like being the center of attention (can you tell?)

 

Speeches are up in the air as most people said they are to shy but will really do it if we want them too!  sigh!  I hope we can get a few people together, as I think it will be sweet.

 

I hadn't planned on renting the screen/projector but a slide slow of your guests and you growing up is a cute idea. Not sure I have the patience for it.

 

I would love if we could play games -- like beersbie or beer pong, etc. but just not sure how practical that is.  Thoughts from past brides?

 

We will have glow sticks haha but that is more an accessory.

Edited October 12, 2014 by calgarybride2015

[Lia33]

@@calgarybride2015 - That's a great idea - to do all the dances in one shot! However, my FI has two "moms". He has his biological mother  but was mainly raised by step mother. So if there is going to be a dance it will be with both lol - so he may have to switch partners mid song lol 

 

I don't like being the center of attention either - so being the bride is enough attention for me! lol Slideshow would be really cute idea!

Edited October 12, 2014 by Lia33

[beckys98]

My sister did her slideshow DURING her father/daughter dance and first dance - immediately after dinner and before everyone started dancing. It worked out great because it didn't put so much attention on her and it was really sweet. 

 

I honestly don't want to do ANY of those traditional things. But I'm not having my dad walk me down the aisle though, so I think he'll be devastated if I don't do a father/daughter dance either. But my fiancé will definitely NOT want to do a mother/son dance, so I don't know. I'm considering doing the speeches at a welcome event on a different night. I really just want to do dinner and then get to the DANCING! With receptions at my resort having to end at 10, I just think we'll be running short on time and I want to maximize the fun for our guests. 

[palmtree99]

We are skipping all of that traditional stuff. We decided no parent dances, and we aren't having a bridal party so no speeches. We will do a slideshow before dinner, then dinner, then cake cutting, then dancing.

[chelseapaige37]

We aren't doing a big entrance, and are breaking speeches up between dinner courses. The parent dances are important to our family, so we have to do them. I want games too but don't really know how to get that going?

 

 

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[beckys98]

I hadn't thought about games! Now that you mention it I would love to do that a different night during the week - just informally for those who want to participate. Adding that to my "ideas to figure out" list

[cometgirl]

We are going to do speeches and dances but no bouquet/garter toss. I do like the idea of doing the shoe game or something fun like that. 

 

We are going to do a slideshow at our at home reception that  will include some mexico shots as well as beer pong as it will be a very casual backyard bbq. 

[veryvalentine]

I have also thought about taking out some of the traditional elements of the wedding.  For one thing, we only have until 11pm for our reception so we basically have 4 hours to eat and party.  lol  Maybe it's a good idea to write down what we must have and then try to figure out the plan from there. 

[Guest]

We'd avoid all of it if we could. We're not doing the bouquet or garter toss, and we're not planning to do speeches. We won't stop someone if they want to do one, but we're not planning any and won't have a mic or anything set up.  We will have to do the first dance and father/daughter & mother/son dance, mostly for our parent's sake.  His mother gets really emotional about things like that so we figured that it wasn't a big hassle for us to do something like that for her benefit.