A responsible DJ must return calls or mails within 24 hours.

DJs must meet the client with a good, methodical and organized presentation of services offered.
Remember that the cheapest is not the best. Choosing a cheap DJ could mean inability to handle unusual situations, like having backup equipment or just amateurs who know the basics and not the quality needed for a wedding.

It is important to have at least some affinity with the DJ, to avoid a public relations disaster with a taciturn and disgruntled DJ and unhappy couple. The DJ must provide generous information on his product, perhaps with videos etc. and be amiable in answering all questions posed by the clients.
The DJ must have experience on weddings as DJs have their preferred work: Rave, club, weddings etc. Check the DJ’s previous experience with weddings.

DJ’s must have documented planners, copies of contracts, schedules, pricing and a list of references. Make sure to check up the references to avoid problems, issues, or concerns during the event, making sure he was a success.

Technically, the DJ must have a viewable music database, to get an idea of the kind of music available. DJ’s may or may not use music sheets. The client must be satisfied as to quantity, quality and variety of the music available. DJs must be able to choose music for the multifaceted guests present at weddings.

The equipment must be professional grade and not good quality home equipment, where presentation will not be good in the varying conditions of the reception area. Checkout the equipment at his studio and make sure he has backup.

Meeting the DJ after signing the contract to plan and discuss is important and a professional DJ should be flexible in accommodating changes.
It is important to know the DJ who will be actually at the event. The person one meets and discusses with must be the one at the show. This must be decided on before signing the contract and the DJ’s name must be on the contract.

Good DJs are irreplaceable, as they are responsible for the party atmosphere. In addition to managing the music, the DJ should also be multifaceted and have other qualities like: Party organizer, master of ceremonies, sound and light technician with professional equipment and large music inventory and an audience motivator. DJs should be able to read the crowd and choose music accordingly, follow the plan previously worked out with the client, be flexible to sudden changes, provide continuous and seamless music, be a good crowd motivator and most important be able to coordinate and coexist with other professionals at the event.

Remember that the DJ is the soul of the party.

Do not forget to add information regarding travel and accommodation for outstation guests. Book rooms at hotels for your guests and most of these hotels are likely to give you discounts on bookings. Send in all details regarding the discounts available so as to help your guest decide and make necessary bookings well in advance to avoid any inconvenience.

If you are planning on having a reception at a different venue after the wedding ceremony, then do not forget to include the time, date, and location of the same. This invitation need not be very elaborate, just a simple one that carries all the essential details is enough. Your guest must have all the important details of the ceremonies and the reception.

Wedding invitations range from simple ones to those that are more elaborate and fancy. You could use fancy paper, different color cardboard, hand made paper pieces of traditional tissue paper etc to enhance the look of your invitation. There are wide varieties of papers and envelopes that are available in the market to choose from to make your wedding invitation a one to remember. You could choose something to match the tone of your wedding. The wedding invitations are the first step towards your wedding preparation; they bring you close towards the reality of your marriage and involve a lot of excitement and fun. Choose something that will be close to your heart and remembered by one and all.

- make it look elegant.
- use existing concepts
- work on something abstract

Making it look elegant means that every aspect of the invitation has to be very attractive. The modernity of the printing press will have to be taken into account to reproduce the kind of work required. Flowing vine patterns are very Victorian in style, monograms can be embossed for best effects. This creates a rather rich feel. Some of the other processes that can be used are hot stamping, engraving, embossing or dye-cutting. But just keep in mind, the more the processes used, the higher will be the final cost of the invitation. However, each process will add its own charm to the invitation card.

To make an invitation a grandiose one, the couple has to look at various parameters – monograms, calligraphy, color combinations, the size, the borders, all these will matter when planning the invitation card. There are many books you can use for reference, but the best thing about it is they are free to use without any charges for royalty. Image processing software has advanced and sitting at home one can create a design and have it printed. It is fun to work on variations, till the couple decides on what they think is the best. This could be very time consuming if one does not come to a mutual agreement.

Ready made concepts sounds like something off the counter but this is not quite true – these could also be unusual. This term comes from picking up ideas or items which are usually used and changed to adapt it to the wedding invitation. A novel idea of an invitation in Hong Kong was that it was designed like a passport. The passport is common but the novel idea of adapting it to use it for an invitation card is ingenious. The ‘passport’ could have the photographs of the couple with a short story about them. The wedding invitation is not only an invite but you get to know some details about their background.

The air ticket has been also transformed into an invitation – it is a great idea, a free ticket to attend the function – however it is not as versatile as the passport invitation. The air ticket may not have the space for the introduction of the couple with photographs, even though it is a brilliant idea all the same. An invitation in the form of a sculpture, or a 3-dimensional piece of cake as an invitation sounds terrific too. Glass bottles are also sent out as invitations. The cost factor has to be taken into consideration not only when it goes into making it but also the added weight which will cost quite a packet on mailing. Your imagination can create almost anything from what you see of a commonly placed object – here comes in the novelty and challenge to work with ready made concepts. These invitations can be so rare that people could be discussing about it for a long time to come. The invitees will want to know who designed the masterpiece, and the talk and discussion about the marriage will start from the day the invitation has been received by the guests. In fact it can be quite the talk of the town drawing much attention to the forthcoming wedding. This serves the greatest purpose – one will never forget to attend the function, and instead look forward to what else is in store at the wedding.

Abstract projects for the invitation are the most challenging. This design concept has to be worked on with a lot of depth so you can get the essence of it. A for Anita and P for Peter – the monograms can be embossed on the invitation card as well as on the accessories, giving a oneness to the whole subject of marriage. Two invitations could be sent out with the different initials and the combination of the two to read as one could be the symbol of marriage.

Different ways, different ideas – it all depends on what the couple wants to make that special day really unique.

The most popular book signing is to place a photograph of the bride and groom on a table and the guests signing off below.  Since the official wedding photograph will not be in yet, it could be a Polaroid shot or the engagement photograph, which can be replaced with the official wedding photograph later.

A change from signing a photograph of the bride and groom could be, the guests signing a photograph of themselves.   Have someone with a Polaroid take pictures of the guests and the guests can sign their own picture, after it dries, for the couple’s album or a great wedding memento scrapbook.  The guests can also write something nice or funny etc.  Have several sharpies available.

When guest books are left at the entrance to a reception, hungry guests often run for the cocktails forgetting the guest book.  Sending a photograph of the bride or groom or both, to the guest to sign before the wedding could make a nice option for the wedding guest album.  If the guests are asked to write some message to the couple, these messages could be compiled in a way to make it interesting and demonstrated on the wedding day.

For creative tight knit wedding guests, the couple could send off photo album size paper, 12 x12, 8 x 8 or 6 x 6, for the guests to create and decorate into a memory page.  This page can have photographs of themselves or the bride or groom as children, anecdotal stories, quotes etc.  The page could be decorated with art or stickers.  This is a really great way to include guests unable to make it to the wedding and make them a part of the wedding.  These pages can be shown at the wedding before binding them into a keepsake album.

Another is to make a photograph of each table with the bride and groom with the official photographer or a friend.  Give each table an 8 x 8 or larger or smaller photograph size paper and have them sign or write something on it.  Later the photograph and the signed paper from each table can be matched and bound into a souvenir album.  This will really be a great keepsake, showing the guests in their wedding regalia and the table with those wonderful flowers.

Each couple can think up numerous ways to make the wedding book signing a part of their wedding, to cherish long after the festivities are over.  A close bridesmaid, sister or friend could take charge of this activity.  All it takes is creative imagination and the will to do it.

The most common post wedding activity is often a large breakfast or brunch.  This is a really great time for very close family and friends to catch up and share memories.  This day-after activity can be elaborate or just a simple family time.  It can be held at a restaurant, close relative’s house for a more relaxed and intimate setting, catered or potluck.

As old traditions go, the bride and groom use the post wedding day to open presents.  It is believed that it is good luck to open the presents before the family.  This event can be made interactive by opening the presents and displaying them, where all the family can see and admire them in detail.

The gift opening activity can be made into a game for all to participate and enjoy, even if it is just good old silly fun.  One can start with the largest and work through to the smallest, vice-versa or just pick and choose.  The family can participate in trying to guess what’s inside the package.  A tally can be kept and the one with the most correct guesses can be given a small gift.

The women relatives can help the bride take care of the wedding gown.  Dry cleaning, storage or whatever the bride wanted done, in addition to preserving the bouquet.

All families have someone extremely craft oriented.  This may be the right occasion for family to help the bride put together normal pictures taken by relatives and friends in an album with hand written notations by those present.  It will make a great keepsake, different from those of the official photographer.  In fact if this event gets planned before the wedding, the bride could ask someone to make snapshots of funny and interesting events at the wedding.  Use your imagination and you can have a fun filled day with the nearest and dearest.

Computer or craft oriented relatives and friends can help make the thank-you cards for the gifts and this can take care of another post honeymoon job.  The couple can make personal notations in it and the cards will be individual and personal instead of something bought at a store.

The post-wedding activity is a good time for all closely involved with the hectic activities of the wedding to relax and calm down.  Once the couple has relaxed, they can go off on a wonderful honeymoon without resentful baggage.  Close families even play games like football.  Any activity to wind down and blow off steam for the whole group is great.  With the wedding stress over and done with, the wind-down day will be a welcome relief for all.

The poet game….  This involves the guests becoming poets using two words given to them.  Make two sets of cards, taking into account two cards per person, one from each set.  One set should have a romantic word on each card e.g. perfume, kiss, rose etc.  The other should have non-romantic words like mustache, cooking, nose or ear hairs etc.  Include funny words.  The guests draw a card from each set and make up a rhyme or silly poem with the words or phrases they got.  The poems are read out, voted on and the best gets a prize.

A cloth bag is filled with male items like: wallet, shoehorn, razor etc.  The guests must feel the items through the bag and guess what it is.  Then they write down the guesses. When everyone has written down the guesses, the bags contents are shown and the person with the most correct guesses gets a prize.

This video game is fun and extremely interactive.  The group is divided into teams of 3-5 and each team must have a video camera and blank tapes.  Make sure there’s plenty of blank tapes and sufficient video cameras.  The groups must do a scavenger hunt type of activity on tape.   About 3 activities are plenty.  They could ask a total stranger to sing the national anthem and tape him or her.  It can be quite funny if the singer makes it funny.  A team member could sing, “I wish I were an Oscar Meyer hot dog,” at a hot dog stand or the meat section of a local store.  Another is singing songs, using some word in the song to connect to a place.  If there is a store called, “Edelweiss”, someone in the group could be taped outside the store singing the song.  The groups are given an amount of time to tape and return to the party.  Prizes can be given to the winning group.  A special prize can be given to the group that created their own stunts. 

Games at bachelorette parties are designed to create an atmosphere of fun and to help the guests get to know each other and to break the ice.  Often close friends may not know the bride’s oldest sister or another friend from her school days.  These games help relax the mood.  One of these games is the “I never” game.  Everyone gets a turn. 

One person says, “I never lied about my weight.”  Everyone in the group who has lied about their weight takes a drink and makes a mark on a paper.  This can continue with other, “I nevers”, until everyone has said an “I never”.  These “I nevers” can be lying about one’s age, getting a parking or speeding ticket, streaking at college, shoplifting etc.  The person with the most marks gets a prize.

A kind of trivial pursuit is a good ice breaker.  The questions should relate to events in the couples’ lives and facts about the couple, their meeting and courting, including from birth if possible.  This will not only help the guests to know each other but for all including the couple to know things about each other.  An old aunt could tell some funny childhood story or embarrassing childhood incident.  The groups could be divided into two, not according to whose side they are on, but randomly counting 1 or 2.  Then the teams could get points for each correct answer with the winning team getting prizes.

Corporate functions use an icebreaker that works well for engagement parties as well.  In this game everyone must be encouraged to move around and work the guests, even those they do not know.  Everyone has a card taped to their back and they chat up different guests and before moving on, each should write something on each other’s card about the person.  Some examples….he is handsome, she is smart, he likes politics etc.  After a while everyone reads their own card and the comments about themselves to the crowd.  Of course the comments are meant to be funny, complimentary and generally in a positive sense.  It is most certainly inappropriate to use nasty or hurtful comments.

Another card game is a sort of memory game.  Often this will be the first time many have met and names tend to get confused or forgotten.  Here everyone wears a card with their names on it but at the back of the card is a number that no one sees.  People mingle and introduce each other and chat.  Then everyone flips over the cards and now the names are gone and there is a number.  The guests are given paper and pencil and have to match up the names against the numbers.  It would be nice to give the one with the most correct matches of name and number a small gift.

Another fun activity is to allow the marrieds to give advice to the to-be marrieds.  Hang up two poster boards with, “advice from women” on one and “advice from men”, on the other.  The guests offer advice on wedding planning, including ideas from their own wedding.  This is not about marriage but about the wedding.  The comments can be diverse and entertaining depending on the age of the married couple, where they live…city vs. small town etc.

The MC or DJ can have a list of questions and asks the questions one at a time.  The first person to answer correctly gets the centerpiece and the table is out of the game.  This can go on until the last centerpiece is awarded.  Questions can range from animals, countries, movies politics, news of the day, President at a certain year etc.

A popular way is for the bride to put a number under each centerpiece.  Sometime during the evening, numbers are handed out to each person at the tables, from 1-10 or 1-12 depending on the seating.  A number is called or pulled out and the person with the number at each of the tables wins the centerpiece.   To make it more interesting and drawn out, the MC can do a table at a time and have the winner do something, like sing a song, recite a nursery rhyme or recite a poem etc.  Do different things for each table, making it interactive and fun.   Do use a mike so that everyone can hear.

Another way to divide the centerpiece is with the MC requesting something unusual at each table and the person having the item winning the centerpiece.  Items could be a pillow mint, a dollar coin or quarter from a certain year, a dental appointment card or bill etc., the person who has the item wins the centerpiece.  To make it more interesting, the winner has to tell a joke, sing or do a jig.

The MC could just go from table to table and give the centerpiece to the oldest or youngest at the table or the person who took the longest to finish university.  The table itself could vote on the most talented or ‘strange’ talented at the table and the voted person must show or perform the talent before winning the centerpiece.

Instead of musical chairs, the tables could play musical dollar bill, fork, spoon or plate. The item is passed around and the person with the item when the music stops wins the centerpiece.  If you wish to prolong the game, the person with the item is eliminated and the last one left without the item wins.

Other traditional ideas for winning the centerpiece include the person with a birthday that day or closest to the wedding date etc.  Another is the couple married the longest or most recently or with the most children winning.  Again it could be the person at the table with the strangest hair or outfit or shoes voted by the table members for winning the center piece.

This is to test the bride’s knowledge of her husband to be.  Before the party one of the brides party asks the groom questions about himself.  Like place of birth, food etc.  Include some easy ones and some difficult ones.  During the bridal shower, each person asks her one question.  Tally the correct answers against the incorrect ones and hopefully she gets at least half right.  Then give her a prize no matter what. 

The toilet-paper wedding dress is an age old favorite.  The guests are divided into teams of 2 to five.  Each team gets 1-2 rolls of toilet paper rolls and share a box with shoes, hats, gloves, jewelry, accessories etc. and the teams create a wedding dress with one of the team being the model.  Each team must be finished within five to seven minutes.  The bride votes on the best dress and the winning team gets prizes.

A fun game basically for the shower guests to get embarrassed.  All the guests put their purses in one place.  The bride has a list of items generally found in purses and those not so commonly found.  These items get points. Lipstick could get 1 point while a stapler 20 and so on.  Then the bride goes through each purse awarding points and everyone laughs at the kind of things that come out of each purse.  The purse with the most points earns a big prize for the owner.

The bride is told that she is on her honeymoon and the power is out.  She has to get ready for her wedding night in total darkness.  She should be given a suitcase full of clothes then blindfolded.  Now she must go through the suitcase and get dressed within 2 minutes.  Add silly things like long sleeved flannel nightgowns, gardening gloves etc.  It is hilarious and make sure someone is videotaping and taking pictures.  It’s great for laughs for years to come.  Do give her a prize for this, she earned it.

Shower Bingo game.  Create bingo cards by putting pictures of items the bride could receive like naughty lingerie, towels, candles, etc.  The guests mark off the item on the bingo card as the bride opens her gifts.  The winner will be the one with a full bingo card or the most items checked off and gets a prize.

This is a clean version of a popular bachelorette game involving a stripper.  The bride leaves the room about half to an hour into the shower.  The guests are given paper and pencil to write down everything about the bride and her outfit they can remember, including jewelry. After everyone is finished, the bride comes in and each one checks their observations.  The one with the most correct observations wins a prize.

Here are a few active games for all ages.

Want It Now

In this game the MC, DJ or someone at the party, has a list of “wants” ready for the reception.  The guests sit at their tables and wait for the commands.  The MC says: “I want a lady with painted toe nails”.  All the ladies with painted toe nails run to the MC and the one who arrives first wins a point for the table.  Another could be men with beards and or mustaches etc. Always include many “wants” that many have, so that more people get up and run and a few unusual ones like a bus ticket or train stub.  The table that gets the highest points is the winner. Have some party favors or small gifts on hand.

Musical Men Chairs

All the men kneel on one knee to be the chair as in musical chairs.  The women run around to the music and sit on the nearest knee when the music stops.  The woman or man or both who fall or loses balance is taken out and the last couple to be in wins.  This game does bring on a lot of laughter and relaxes the guests.

Knowing The Newlyweds

This game really allows the guests to intermingle and get to know each other.  The MC makes people count off 1, 2, 1, 2 etc. until all the guests are either 1 or 2.  If the guest list is very large the count could be increased to 3, 4, or 5.  The two groups get together on either side of the room.  The MC then asks questions about and relating to the bride and groom.  The teams must work together to get the right answer which will be confirmed by the groom or bride.  The team that gets the most number correct wins.  Again it would be nice to have party favors for the winning group.  This is great for guests to mingle and get to know each other and to know the bride and groom better too.

Having wedding reception games is the best way to get people to mingle and make them a part of the celebration.  This is also a great way to fill time especially if the group is not a dancing kind of group and this will get the guests to loosen up and enjoy the celebrations.  Don’t presume that people will be offended with the games.  Wedding planners constantly get reports of how people really had a great time with the wedding reception games.