Weddings Reception Decorations

What are some good games/activities for wedding receptions?

My wedding is in ten months (yea!!) and I am trying to plan a reception. I want both my families and my fiance's families to have a great time! What are some activites or games that would be good for getting people out of their chairs?

Public Comments

1. If you think of any, let me know! I'm trying to do the same thing lol! The only thing I have come up with is "Who Knows Us Best" I'm thinking of cards with some questions about our courting and having friends and family write in the answers. The majority are not single so we were thinking of a woman goody bag with a mini bouquet and man good bag with a garter. I'm not sure if it will be an individual effor or a group/table effort. If it's a group effort we'd have to come up with a different prize. But that's all I have right now.
2. Usually there is just food and dancing at a wedding reception. If you are having it outside, like at a park, maybe you could have horseshoes, lawn darts and some frisbees.
3. instead of clinking glasses to have the bride and groom dance, make them come up to the mic to sing a song with the word love in it
4. Quite honestly, aside from doing the chicken dance or the locomotion, I wouldn't plan any games or any specific activities for a reception. If you've hired a good DJ or MC, then THEY will keep your guests engaged and having fun, that's what you're paying them for! And some people are just happy to sit and watch everyone else get crazy, lol... Games are for showers. The happy occasion should be enough to get people having fun together without scheduled games and/or activities. Good luck!
5. Dancing is my first thought. Trivia games, you can divide up the guests into teams like "Bride's Team" & "Grooms Team" and which ever side gets more points wins. You can probably just modify a trivia game from the store to fit your needs. You can rent a bounce house to entertain the kids. Setup casino tables and hand out chips. Karaoke
6. I'm sorry, but games and activities do not belong at a wedding reception. Good company, good food, good drinks and good music will get the party moving.
7. Typically, you do not have games an activities at weddings. It's more of socializing meet and greet type of event. Is it informal/outdoors and a lot of kids coming? Yeah some of those wedding "games" are pretty cheesy and cringe worthy. Pass the dollar bill anyone! Let's clink our glasses! I am so going to hell....:/ I think I've been to one to many weddings.
8. Guessing from some of the answers you are getting here, I'm guessing that playing games at a wedding reception is really a regional thing. It is pretty common where I am from, and we had quite a few fun games/activities that I think made the reception a lot more fun and helped all of our guests get to know us better and have a more fun time than just sitting around and talking (which can get old fast if you don't know the couple or family really well). One thing that I thought went especially well at our reception was our "kissing game." Typically guests will clink their glasses and make noise that they want the bride and groom to kiss, but we put a little different spin on it. We had an envelope with some names of couples in them and had our MC's draw a name out of the envelope every time guests clinked their glasses. Then that couple would have to stand up and show us (the bride and groom) how to do our kiss and we would have to replicate it. It was a fun way to include the guests we wanted and everyone got a kick out of it - some of the kisses were very creative! One tip for this - make sure you pick out couples from your guest list who you know would be ok with this. We tried to pick some of our younger cousins or family friends who would get a kick out of being the center of attention for a little bit. It's more fun when you have people involved that want to do it. As a sidenote, we had two cousins get married 3 weeks after us, and they decided to do this game too! So it just shows that it was a fun little activity to spice up the evening a little bit.
9. Don't play games but here are a few I have seen other than that I see as tacky. Ok so instead of clinking the glasses you had have everyone stand up and read a poem or you have tables sing love songs?? Yu could do all those funny dances YMCA conga hmm what else my favorite the cha cha. Then for centerpieces you could have however has the closet birthday to your wedding date win!
10. We are having two main activities: ~A wedding cake decorating contest with probably 5 plain white sheet cakes (and thus 5 teams) plus a small kids' cake and ALL the cake decorating supplies you can think of. :) We bought personalized ribbons for the winning team. We'll take tons of photos before eating them, of course! ~A reception-wide trivia game. We'll break everyone into teams of 4 or 5 and ask trivia questions (some wedding-based, but not all), and also have personalized ribbons for the winners. The guests keep telling us how excited they are for the party! We're not having any dancing at all since no one's that interested (and I'm always disappointed if that's all there is to do at a party, since I'm not a big dancer.) Other ideas: ~Have a matted (but not framed) photo of the two of you with a few sharpies nearby. People can sign the mats and you can have it framed ~Have a stack of index cards and a shoebox wrapped with wrapping paper. Have a sign that asks guests to write a few words of marriage advice and put it in the box. ~You can have some outdoor "relay" type games that can be hilarious, like 3-legged races, egg-and-spoon races, running with a pingpong ball between the knees, etc. :) Even the old ones get in on these!