How to keep the guests entertained?

Hello I totally appreciate why you're getting married earlier but you're right in saying that 2.5 hours is a long time. Especially as realistically people won't actually be sitting down and eating until 4.30 at least. We're having a pub quiz and a games room (old school board games, games consoles, giant Jenga etc) - we're getting married in 3 weeks, so the weather won't be nice at ours either I expect!

I don't think it takes a lot to keep people entertained, as long as the drinks flow, food is plentiful and there's a little something to do. Good luck!

We had the harpist from the ceremony play whilst guests had drinks & waited for us to have our pics taken. Not that entertaining, but more of a background noise whilst guests chatted amongst themselves.

Will guests be staying in hotels nearby. Could you suggest they freshen up then come back to the wedding venue? Is there a museum/bowling alley or any other entertaining thing nearby that you could suggest they do during the break?

Otherwise I like the giant games ideas- jenga, connect 4 etc. You can buy from ebay & sell afterwards or use for parties in future.

Could you make the food a bit earlier? If you're getting married at 12 most of your guests wouldn't have had lunch so sitting down at 4 (getting food at 4pm) is quite a long time to go with only canapés for people who've only had breakfast. Could you maybe swap it round, and make lunch earlier (maybe 3?) then drinks and canapés would keep people entertained and you could do a pub quiz or something after food and speeches to make it last a bit longer. People tend to be easier to entertain when they're not hungry!

I agree with this. 4pm is a very late lunch, especially if people have had to start early and travel. You'll probably be ravenous by then too! A few vol-au-vents isn't going to fill that hole. It will also mean people might get quite drunk before dinner starts. Once they've had something to eat and a good natter, they'll mind a bit of sitting around later on much less.

Agree with the others - getting married at noon means your guests are missing lunch and not being fed until 4pm is way too long, you will all be ravenous. If it were me I would do the meal at 2.30/3pm latest.

Hi all,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, I really appreciate all of your ideas and advice.

I will definitely speak to our venue about bringing the wedding breakfast forward although both me and my OH seem to recall being told that the breakfast is always that time in our venue (although we might have misheard that, we were quite overwhelmed when booking!).

If we can't change the time we will probably double the amount of canapes we were originally going to have to try and starve off the hunger! My OH liked the idea of games and is now thinking of some sort of casino set up!

On a separate note we've just booked a photobooth for the evening which I'm very excited about!

Thank you again for all your help x

If funds allow consider hiring a casino for this interim period. They're great fun!

Agreed with the last poster a casino. we are doing this with a magician to keep our guests entertained in the 3 hour gap we will ahve between arrival and speeches.

Don't worry- if the people there are friends and there are nibbles and drinks that will be entertainment enough. I've never been to a wedding with entertainment in that gap- it's all worked out fine.