Make A Large Wedding Feel More Intimate With These Helpful Tips
When it comes to your special day, you may envision touring close and intimate wedding venues, but when you look at the guest list, the amount of people you want to invite says otherwise. Well what if you could have both? Just because you have a higher attendance at your wedding doesn’t mean you have to abandon the feeling of intimacy you want to achieve.
With our venue being the perfect space to accommodate a larger wedding party, here’s what we recommend in order to make your wedding feel more intimate:
1. Group Activities
Have some sort of attraction at the wedding where people can join together and participate. We have put on everything from photo walls with props, a polaroid station or a photo-booth where people can immediately take their prints and hold onto the memory. This allows people another activity beyond dancing and builds camaraderie between your guests. We all know we’ve made an acquaintance or two while waiting in line for things like this.
2. Meals Served As Sharing Portions
When it comes to the food at wedding venues, buffets or meals served individually to guests can be time consuming and very difficult to coordinate. If you serve meals as large sharing portions, guests can then be seated next to each other at a long table and pass food down to each other. This creates the feeling of a close intimate dinner like being gathered around a family meal, where guests have to pass food and conversate with one another. This will achieve the feeling of other intimate event venues by simply orchestrating the meal correctly.
3. Cozy Spaces
Having intimate spaces tucked away from the dance floor will allow people to mingle without loud music getting in the way. For people who would rather hang back from the dance floor or simply need a break from dancing, this creates a camaraderie and closeness amongst guests where they can get to know each other one on one. Also dividing a larger space into smaller spaces visually makes the event seem smaller. People can explore and gather at different areas of the event, making the event itself seem less grandiose.
4. Meeting and Greeting
While this is your special day, and the main priority should be remembering these moments forever, making it a point to meet and greet all of your guests will add to the intimacy of your wedding. People love to feel important and recognized, so making rounds during dinner, or when people first arrive, or even during breaks on the dance floor, will make your guests feel appreciated by you.
5. Toasts and Speeches
Most weddings aren’t complete without a toast or speech, but having numerous throughout the night that are coordinated and planned, can add special moments of intimacy for your guests. Your guests are here to celebrate you and to be invited into special moments with friends, family and the couple themselves, will make your event that much more intimate. Your attendees then have the chance to clap and celebrate with you, and depending on how good the speech is, maybe even shed a tear or two.
When you start your search for event venues and things every wedding venue should offer, don’t let the space itself or the guest list intimidate you. By following these 5 simple steps we provided, you can turn any large wedding gathering into the intimate day of your dreams. With an entire party planning team behind us, we at Ovation are more than happy to help you plan and execute ideas to achieve your vision.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What constitutes a large wedding? Is there a certain number of guests?
A. Depending on expectations, larger weddings can vary in size when it comes to the number of guests you invite. We like to work with you in terms of the wedding size we can host in comparison with the amount of attendees you would like to invite, and then work with the space to accomplish your vision.
Q. Is large sharing portions the only option when it comes to food?
A. No, there are many options beyond a “family style” meal, however, when it comes to a larger wedding party, we feel this option is best. You can run into long lines with buffet style and individually served meals can run into issues with timing and so forth.
Q. What if you can’t meet and greet every single one of your guests?
A. That’s okay. Simply trying to get to as many people as you can shows your guests you care. Other attendees will also see you intermingling and it will create a sense of care. There are many other touch points as well you can coordinate that will help the guests you miss feel close and connected with you.