Many bridal couples fervently hope that their closest friends and family won't plan any embarrassing games or performances at their wedding. Partly because these games are usually only amusing to the couple and a small circle of accomplices (while the rest of the guests offer a tired smile), and often because the couple doesn't want to be in the spotlight any more than they already are, finding these games more cringe-worthy than funny.
So what can you plan as best man, friends, or family that is amusing and entertaining for all guests and also brings joy to the couple?
For the wedding of a good friend of mine, we asked ourselves exactly this question. We wanted to find something that could also serve as a wedding gift, would remain memorable for the couple, and involve the majority of the guests. That's when we came up with the idea of creating a video. The initial thought was for all guests to record a message with their wishes for the newlyweds, ideally filmed during their vacations so we could create a little world tour out of it (the vacation idea only works if you have enough lead time and if vacation or travel times fall within your planning period ☺️).
While brainstorming for the wedding video, I remembered that in my old company, we had a video competition where every department had to be involved. The goal was to recreate the music video for "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, with various people repeatedly "dancing" and "singing" small scenes from the video. The song plays continuously, featuring different people throughout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM
Why shouldn't this concept work as a wedding video?
Here are my top tips for the perfect wedding video from guests
Choose a song that most people know and can be purchased in good quality for a small price, for example, on Apple Music – we chose "Mamma Mia" by ABBA.
Plan enough time! You'll probably need to send 3-4 reminders before you receive all the videos from the guests, and you'll need sufficient time to edit the video.
Can you edit the video yourself, or do you need help? I'm sure someone in your circle of friends is familiar with iMovie or Windows Movie Maker / Microsoft Photos.
Divide the song into sections, so each section is assigned to a wedding guest or a group of guests (be mindful of potential empty spaces during the intro and outro, which are hard to "dance" to).
You'll notice that there are way too few sections for the number of wedding guests when assigning parts (we had about 80 people and had to divide the guests into many small groups, sometimes up to 6 people).
If guests are to record together, ensure they are either couples or friends who live nearby and see each other anyway. We assigned individual guests and people who might not know anyone else at the wedding separately.
Provide participants with clear instructions on what is expected of them, by when they need to record and submit the video, whether they should film in portrait or landscape mode, and the email address to send their final work to (possibly also advise them to use WeTransfer if the file is too large).
Plan for fillers! It's always possible that an "assigned section" falls through because guests don't have time or other reasons for not submitting the video, leaving you with a missing sequence in the middle of the video. For our own part, we simply recorded a bit more and produced fillers that we could later edit into the video.
Discuss with the bride or groom to find out the best time to play the video on the day (without revealing anything, of course). We decided to show it after the main course and before dessert. Since dessert was planned as a buffet and not all guests necessarily want dessert—with half already at the bar and the others ready to dance—it would have been impossible to get everyone back to their seats after dessert.
Coordinate with the DJ and wedding venue about what's needed to play the video. Is there a projector? Do you need an adapter? Is a USB stick sufficient to give to the DJ? What about a microphone to introduce the whole thing?
By the way: As a Wedding Day Coordinator, I can help ensure that the video is played at the right time and place with the proper equipment. If the couple hasn't booked professional support for the day yet, they can learn more about my services here!
The result turned out great. The joy of the couple was huge! What I loved even more was that the majority of the guests could see themselves in the video—from friends to neighbors to grandparents. Because we planned everything well in advance, many couldn't quite remember their video and were doubly surprised!
To allow the couple to watch the video again in the future (without the high adrenaline levels of the wedding day), we put the video on a USB stick and presented it as a wedding gift. As a little extra, there was also an outtakes video that wasn't shown at the wedding.
I believe the work and effort we put into this is worth more than any monetary or material gift in the world and will remain memorable for all the guests and, of course, the bride and groom for a long time.
I hope I could inspire you with a creative wedding gift and wish you lots of fun brainstorming and filming!
Marie