Wedding Breakfast – Pearls of Wisdom

An extract from the book “Wedding Day Secrets – Facts The Industry Would Prefer Brides Didn’t Know” by Derek Pengelly, a friend and guide.

Maintaining the party atmosphere during the wedding breakfast can be both challenging and rewarding. I’ll share something with you called “Pearls of Wisdom”. The idea is to keep your guests entertained at a time when there is no dancing. This piece of interaction is designed to maintain focus on the Bride and Bridegroom while introducing some of the guests to others who may not know who they are.

Most Brides are familiar with the idea of a guest book. It is usually placed on a table, and guests are invited to record their sentiments about the day, and leave their best wishes. If you ever looked closely at one of these guest books, you’ll notice that the first couple of pages are really interesting and creative. Unfortunately, as you get further into the book, the messages get shorter and shorter, as people run out of ideas as to what to write.

To introduce Pearls of Wisdom, I will wait until everyone is seated. I will then explain what is about to happen. “Ladies and Gentlemen; while you’re eating, we thought it would be a good idea if you were to offer some advice to the new Mr. & Mrs. Jones, to help them start off their married life on the right foot. On the table in front of you are some advice cards. You’ll notice there is a sentence which starts off “to have a long and happy married life, the one thing never to do is………..” or “to have a long and happy married life the one thing never to say is….” There are twelve examples of the cards on the table. All you have to do is complete the sentences”.

I will go on to explain that this advice may be something offered to them when they got married. It may be something they learned for themselves, the hard way, once they married. The advice can be sincere, humorous, risqué or very often down right rude. People who complete the cards need to add their names in the space at the bottom, and indicate their relationship to the Bride and Bridegroom. This enables me to identify who the aunts and uncles are, as well as the work colleagues and old school friends.

The guests are asked to complete the cards during the wedding breakfast and that they will be collected in at the end and the best of them will be read out to the Bride and Bridegroom, publicly, before the dancing begins later. The remaining cards will be saved and presented to the married couple at the end of the evening.

Once all of the cards have been collected the I will quickly review them. Anything too rude is rejected and saved. An even proportion of the funny, sincere and slightly rude is ideal.

Once half a dozen or so cards have been selected I’ll share the advice with the guests. The use of a radio microphone enables me to visit the tables as I announce the name of the person on each card.

Sometimes, the card has been written in the name of another person, without their knowledge (this creates all sorts of mayhem!).

This can be very funny, and a little embarrassing, for the person named on the card. It’s my job to know just how far I can go with the humour without straying into areas of bad taste. This is also true when it comes to reading aloud the advice on offer. Anything dubious is better coming from the author. I will encourage the person who wrote the advice, to read aloud over the microphone, what was written. I normally finish with sincere advice, from a close family member, and thank the married couple for being good sports.

By the time this piece of interaction is over, people in the room will know more about their fellow guests and the Bride and Bridegroom. I will also remind guests that if their advice was not read aloud, it was probably too rude to share. However, all of the advice will be given to the Bride and Bridegroom later. So next time they are invited round for coffee, beware. The cards may well be sitting on the coffee table and their advice might well come back to bite them!

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