Doing something different at the reception

What is your colour scheme/wedding theme? Date, and approximate location. That might give some clues so we can help.

What are you doing for evening entertainment? We've got a barn dance band coming to ours; you can also hire magicians, charicature artists, lookalikes/impersonators and all sorts of unusual stuff.

Our photographer also offers a studio service for the evening do - you pay a discount price for him to stay on for the evening party and he sets up a small unobtrusive studio in the corner where he takes pictures of people that want them and prints them out there and then for them to take home.

Food - are you going for the traditional finger buffet or would something like a hog roast be suitable? Not sure what your date is as I don't know how practical that might be in February!

Depending on the size of your reception, what about hiring some buses and going out for a little trip (particularly nice if you're in the country and lots of your guests aren't local). We had considered this but would have needed 3 buses and over £1000 to do it for an hour so we discounted it but if you aren't looking for vintage transport you might find some 'party buses' or tourist buses that don't normally operate in the evening that would be willing to do something

Sorry for not being a girl but hope this offers some things for thought?

AJDown - I too love the photographers corner idea - we've booked this package and he then makes the pictures into a guest book with a message from each.

At I recent wedding I went to they had something simular hpwever they had a dress up box and a computer took 4 stupid crazy picture - like a film roll. Then the message was hand written into a guest book. Went down very well.

We have a "betting game" - my dad and brother are gamblers which I've made using postcards from vista.

You could play around with the kind of entertainment...

I did a wedding yeatserday & was also a Guest & halfway through the speeches a Del Boy look alike came & "Gatecrashed"!! It was fantastic & everyone loved it. He had found out something about everyone on the Top table & played on it absolutelt brilliant!

Hi,

We're having this speeches sweepstake during the wedding breakfast, Paddy Power send you a free kit at this link.

http://content.paddypower.com/weddingsweepstakes/index.php

Apart from that we haven't got many unusual things, we're having a disco, a choc fountain, and are considering an irish band for a while as well xx

I found something last night that I have just got to have at my wedding (ideally I'd like it at home every day as well ?) - a pick and mix station! And they do candy floss and popcorn as well.

To be honest I dont like the whole 'doing something different' just for the sake of being different. As you say you have plenty of ideas for the ceremony to make it your own maybe that is enough? There are lots of different takes on the old traditions, think about your theme and then alter the old for a slightly more modern take on it.

We are having a few things going on, balloon model / magician for kids and adults this guy is not your usal balloon modeller his name is David Croft check out his stuff on net he is fab, also having a singer who happens to be a good friends brother and lastly not definate yet we are having a photobooth like https://pixpod.com/index.html so can't wait its going to be so much fun, a we are getting married at xmas we are having reception drinks of mulled wine but champagne if they want x

O theres loads of people on here doing things that are slightly different to the norm so Im sure you'll get plenty suggestions. How about a HOG roast, or a BBQ or something like that for you food!?

I think everyones said a lot of trhe ideas we are aslo having the studio idea with photographer and you could have magician, instaead of choc fountain how about fruit palm treees or a wine fountatin if you have space you could order outside things like bouncy castle outdoor games just some ideas

We have a smaller hall in our venue which will have kids entertainment in.. Tables with things to do and I'd like a big Jenga and things like that. Possibly a bouncy castle, as cheesy as they are. I have 35 children invited so need something.

We're also having a sweepstake kit, I ordered the ones off Paddypower ages ago to use as a template to make my own as I didn't want to use theirs because of the crappy advertising on theirs.

Here's mine - Front -

Back -

I love the idea of doing something different! I posted a comment earlier today about augmenting a DJ with a bongo player (getting that live effect at a fraction of the cost). For our wedding, we tried to keep things personal and relevant to us. For example, our favours were home made jam, based on fruit we had picked ourselves. We also played games, where each table was names after an insect / animal and each table had to stand up and say a poem with the name of the table in it. (We all had a right laugh with the table names "Duck" heh heh!). Good luck!