We have one coming up-my niece-and we are helping my SIL with some of the planning. A lot of the friends that are coming are from various times and places and contacts and won’t know anyone else, besides the bride, or groom, or MIL, etc. So we’d like to do something to get people talking at the tables. We heard of one “game” where you put out cards on each of the tables with statements like “In college, three of you had the same part-time job” so they start talking about what college they went to and all that. I think it might work, but we’d like to see if there are any other suggestions.
Maybe I am a party-pooper, but I absolutely hate being coerced into playing “getting to know you” games with a bunch of strangers. I would rather sit in stony silence than have a structured setup that reminds me of kindergarten. In fact, the stony silence thing usually doesn’t happen. People who are seated together usually find things to talk about on their own.
Champagne, maybe.
Frankly, I’d just let the people talk to each other, or not. “How do you know Niece, or are you here because you know Future Nephew?” is a perfectly adequate getting-to-know-you question. The people that want to meet other people will find a way to do so, and the people that don’t want to meet anyone new will not be resentful of having to play games with people they don’t really want to talk to anyway.
If you’re doing assigned seating, and it sounds like you are, just try to make sure you don’t seat people together that are currently carrying out blood feuds.
As always, YMMV.
My work has icebreakers like this all the time. One of the girls that organises it used to work setting up “singles parties” and uses a number of these on us.
Needless to say, I’m the kind of person who hears the words “We’re going to play a game to get to know each other”, and does the bolt out of the venue. It feels forced and unnatural.
Of course if you’re going to ask all the women to put their carkeys in a bowl on the table, and get each of the men to draw a set of keys out, it’s another story…*
- I kid, I kid
Not what I would usually call an ice-breaker but you could definately use it as one.
Before our wedding my husband-to-be spent time constructing a poem that we printed and put on each table. It basically said that to get the bride and groom to kiss, the table of guests had to stand and sing together a song with the word “Love” in it. The tradition is usually to tap a utensil against your glass to get the bride and groom to kiss and we thought the song thing was much more fun. It was a hoot to see our friends and family scheming over song choices and then hearing what they came up with. I don’t recommend doing it through dinner though - I didn’t get to eat much because everyone kept singing!
If your family and friends aren’t scary people, then hand-holding people through the process of getting to know each other is unnecessary. If they are scary people, then no amount of hand-holding will be enough.
That “icebreaker” shit is so corney. What’s wrong with sitting people at a table and letting them just talk like adults?
An easy and ubobtrusive way would be to put a disposable camera on each table. The guests have an immediate and fun thing to do, and you get some fun pictures of your wedding.
The Camera Idea was done at Mrs F and mine’s wedding. It worked out wonderfully!.. Although we had a professional photographer, some of the “impromptu” shots were included in our wedding album, and they were gems.
Another great ice breaker. Go to a dollar store and get a few simple puzzles (bent nail tangles, knot and ring , and similar)… place a few of these on each table… people will pick them up, try them out and pass them around…
Tape a number under each chair. During the course of the night, the bride/groom, bridesmaids and other “first table” guest draw numbers. Person whos number is drawn has to make a toast, or give a brief account of their memories regarding the bride and or groom.
(we did all these things… worked great… we wanted an informal and fun affair)
regards
FML
The tables at Middlebro’s wedding were organized by “similarity”. People from work, friends of the groom, friends of the bride, young couples (cousins of the bride with bfs and friends of both).
I got snatched out of the friends of the groom table in order to be a social hinge in a table that had ended up being half Dad’s cousins, half Dad’s coworkers. I introduced the people, some fell into conversation naturally, some didn’t, one from each half changed sites with others so they could have a conversation more easily… no icebreakers needed. I’m trying to come up with a wedding that did not have that kind of disposition and drawing a blank.
It would be nice if one of the attendants who knows some of the people could go to the table and do some introductions while they’re making the rounds.
What he said.
Invite my mother to your wedding. In 36 minutes, she will know every guest and start mixing them up together, saying things like “Oh Bob, did you know that Sally once lived on the same street as your boss’s second cousin?”
In the event my mother is unavailable, if you want to go the ice-breaker route, you could prepare some trivia items about the bride and groom, from different aspects of their lives, both as singles and as a couple.
- What was Denise’s favorite class in high school?
- What was Tony’s first job?
- Where did Tony and Denise go on their first date?
So if Denise’s aunt and Tony’s college roommate are sitting at the same table, Auntie could talk about what a great math student Denise was, and the roommate could talk about when Tony got a job at the college library. The focus of a wedding is the couple, so this gets people talking about the couple and about themselves.
I would simply prepare some trivia, put the answers on the back, and display them in some way on each table - but without any big fanfare about what guests are SUPPOSED to do. That way, people who hate ice-breakers (or people who already know each other) could ignore them, and people like my Mom who love that sort of thing could have at it. People who are mildly interested could read them to themselves while waiting for the salad.
Thanks for suggestions so far. What a geat board, to be able to throw a question out at night and have all these ideas in the AM. Looking forward to hearing from others.
The polite, educated and well-mannered thing to do as a gracious host is to commit the commonalities to memory (or jot them down on a notecard and consult it in a corner before walking to the table) and, early in the evening while everyone is still sitting around feeling awkward, walk over to the tables, introduce everyone who doesn’t know each other, and mention those commonalities in person. THAT’S the “old-fashioned” introduction - it’s not about names, it’s about giving each person an idea of who the other is in relation to others and some starting points for conversation. It’s social lubricant.
“Mary, have you met my co-worker John? He’s an avid mountain climber, you know. John, this is the bride’s second cousin Mary, the wildlife researcher.” Now they know they share the General Interest category of Outdoors to start them off.
These things are in the back of the mind of anyone who’s properly arranging the seating chart, so have a paper and pen handy so you can jot them down. WHY did the bride chose to seat her cousin with her co-worker? Well, they have that outdoors thing in common - write it down before you forget!
The following suggestion may work better if all the Happy Couple’s nearest and dearest are still married to their original spouses, or at least are non-acrimoniously divorced.
Ask the nearest and dearest for wedding photographs. Make copies of them, and somehow stick a few pictures of Brides and Grooms on various tables. Then, encourage people to play “Guess who the couples are, then and now”. Brides and Grooms who have married recently may be easy to guess, while grandparents may be identifiable only as probably someone’s grandparents–or not, once you have the age down, one may be able to tell which side of the family they come from.
Maybe I should start another thread on this, but I think it has to do with the introvert/extrovert thing. My wife and I are a little more on the introvert side and wouldn’t just want to jump into soome conversation with strangers that we’ll never see again. I could easily see myself sitting next to some guy, saying/hearing a few dumb things over the course of a few hours and going home. But, getting back to the exercise I mentioned in the OP, what if he and I had both spent a year at SMU? Or both of us were Jerry Garcia fans and still listen to our Grateful Dead albums daily? If we knew that, we might have a much more lively discussion. But I’m imagining that extroverts reading this might think about it differently.
As I said, I’ll start another thread on that, maybe when this one dies down.
Gosh I know I’m not you looking in mirror and seeing a woman, but I’ve been in exactly that same situation as you mention. I have social phobia too, that makes it even harder. That’s why I think the cameras and maybe an announcement at the beginning of the reception as to how much you’d like folks to have fun with them and take as many pics as possible of everyone they see would work.
Exactly.
Forced icebreakers are more awkward than no icebreakers at all.