15 Creative and Practical Wedding Ideas

By Dr. Tamara Johnson, Ph.D.

With the current challenges in our economy, brides and grooms, more than ever, are carefully crafting and monitoring the wedding budgets while maintaining an air of individual style and creativity. Here are a few ideas to get the wedding planning creative juices going.

1. Surprise guests with a handwritten note in each place card (“Aunt Jean thanks for flying in from Kansas!”). Have a larger guest list? Make an original wedding stamp and stamp each place card with personal scripted note.

2. Give each reception table a name (for example, “Riverside Park”) that relates to your courtship. Have a tent card on the table with a short explanation: “The first place we met was at Riverside Park while we were in high school!”

3. In lieu of a traditional guest book, leave a glass bowl with small cards and pens beside it, with a note asking guests to contribute a favorite memory of the bride and groom.

4. Collect photos of family and friends and place them in frames with each guest’s table assignment. Recruit a special wedding reception team to coordinate this task.

5. Minimalist bouquets can project a bride’s modern style. Todd Fiscus, owner of Todd Events (toddevents.com) in Dallas, suggests a single white peony stem tied with a black ribbon, or a slim birch branch wired with a fragrant gardenia.

6. Create one large floral centerpiece out of 10 mini vases. Invite guests to take one on their way out.

7. If you don’t want to put single female wedding guests on the spot, skip the bouquet toss; instead, early in the evening, give your flowers to the couple married the longest. Ask them to share a few words of wisdom with the crowd.

Alternatively, the bride can give a toast to the woman who has had the greatest impact on her life, then give her the bride’s bouquet as a tribute.

8. Instead of a groom’s cake, have an FIY (frost-it-yourself) cupcake bar, with unusual flavors—mango, gingerbread or banana.

9. Coordinate the sweets bar with your wedding colors—pink and green lollipops, taffy or M&M’s. Buy wedding candy bulk at candywarehouse.com, candyfavorites.com, or economycandy.com.

10. Hang a series of framed photos of both of you as children at the reception. Guests can schmooze and peruse during the cocktail hour.

11. Place a blank card and pen at each place setting and ask guests to write a favorite memory of you and/or the groom. Later, bind the notes into a scrapbook.

12. Instead of attendants, have the bride and groom’s parents and siblings (plus any spouses) stand with you at the altar.

13. Set up a mini photo studio (with a plain background) at the reception for guests to have their own mini camera shoot during the reception. Include selected photos from this mini-shoot with your thank you card.

14. Customize wedding reception toasts by asking the bride and groom’s oldest friends to say something they admire about them and the significance of the day.

15. As a personal touch, the bride and groom can raise their glass as a personal toast to wedding guests celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, or the recent birth of a child.

Dr. Tamara Johnson, Ph.D., is the founder of Arlington, Texas based Proverbs Consulting. Proverbs Consulting offers a diversity of professional business consulting strategies to entrepreneurs, small-business owners, faith-based as well as non-profit organizations. Contact Dr. Johnson at info@proverbsconsulting.com or visit the Proverbs Consulting website.

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