You are a unique bride, your wedding should be unique as well. Here are a few tips that can make your wedding special and memorable, and definitely different from every other wedding you’ve ever seen.
1. Instead of a Unity Candle, consider using two vials of colored sand that are poured into a glass or crystal container which has been engraved with your names and wedding date. The combining and mingling to the two colors will create a 100% Unique Wedding Memento that is completely yours. This also works well if your wedding is outdoors or under a tent where a candle flame may act unpredictably.
2. A sweet surprise gesture that will be very touching can be integrated into your ceremony. When discussing your bridal bouquet, ask your florist to include two small removable flower bunches built into your bouquet. After your father walks you down the aisle, turn around and remove one of the bunches from your bouquet, and hand it to your mother. At the end of the ceremony, as you and your husband are about to walk back up the aisle, stop at your mother-in-law’s seat and remove the second bunch from your bouquet and give it to her before proceeding up the aisle. Don’t tell anyone (except maybe your husband-to-be) that you are planning to do this, and it will become a very touching moment for everyone.
3. To encourage your guests to dance and to give them a little excitement, ask your reception location if you can label each table with song names instead of numbers. When your DJ or band plays the song of their table, everyone at the table has to get up and dance. You can assign either a fast or slow song based on who is sitting at the table.
4. Arrange it so that you and your groom enter the reception first, and the bridal party comes in last so that you and your husband can watch yourselves be surrounded by your closest friends before you do your first dance.
5. Avoid anything you’ve seen on YouTube, as funny as it may seem – if millions of people have seen it online, there is a good chance that many people at your wedding have already seen it or been at a wedding where people have tried it.
6. Instead of your guests sitting and watching you do your Unity Candle ceremony, include them in it. When your guests are arriving for the ceremony, have each of them receive a candle along with their program. Light the unity candle as usual, but then before you are about to end and walk back up the aisle, pick up the candle and have the bride carry it over to the groom’s side and have someone light their candle (likewise the groom to the bride’s side), then start ‘passing the flame’, each person lighting their candle from the person beside them. Arrange for a special song to be played while this is happening and while you watch the lights spread throughout everyone in attendance. Let your photographer know you’re planning this so they can get some spectacular pictures of you and your new husband walking up the aisle together completely surrounded by candlelight.
7. Every wedding has a guestbook, which never gets looked at after the wedding. Instead, purchase pre-made scrapbook pages and send one to each guest ahead of time (maybe with their invitation, or after they’ve RSVP’d) and ask them to write a good memory or story about a time together with you (or your fiance – depending on who the guest belongs to) and have them also include a picture. Have an empty scrapbook standing by instead of the guestbook and encourage the guests to bring their completed pages and insert them into the book. This gives you a gift that you will treasure and want to keep around.
8. Banging silverware on glasses to make you kiss during your reception is traditional, so instead, have small bells or some other noisemaker at each place setting, and kiss when they use the noisemaker.
9. If you have any close relatives (grandparents, parents, etc) who are deceased, consider placing a candle on the empty seat where they would have been sitting, or set up a small table with a candle and photograph somewhere close to where the ceremony happens.
10. If you have children attending the wedding, arrange to have a “Fun and Games” table set up. Have coloring books, board games, stickers, crafts, and other little things to keep kids occupied. Don’t be surprised if you catch some of your adult guests madly engrossed in a game of ‘Hungry, Hungry Hippos’.
