How to Plan Your Wedding Reception Runsheet - Keep your vendors happy, and your kitchen happy, and you’ll keep your new wife happy!
Guys. Having played a whole stack of weddings, I’ve learnt a ton about what you can do to maximise your run sheet for your reception. Here’s some suggestions on how to get the most out of your big night!
Pick a great MC. If you have a friend who is a ton of fun and confident on the microphone, they might make for a great MC. You want someone entertaining and easy to listen to - but remember, the primary goal of a great MC is to get out of the way! They’re not the star attraction - the bride and groom are. The cutting of the cake is. The first dance is. The speeches from friends and family. So.. when you’re considering who to ask to be your MC, think about how succinct they can be, whilst remaining fun and lighthearted. Just because someone is a ton of fun - they may not be the best pick for MC work. They also need to run to time and stick to your schedule.. why?
Stick to your agreed upon times as much as possible. I’ve seen it too many times. An MC goes over time, entrees get delayed, which delays speeches, which delays mains, which delays sunset photos… which means missing out on sunset photos! Eek! Luckily, most professional photographers know how critical golden hour shots are and will make this a priority, but I’ve seen couples miss out on their absolute best shots because of timing issues. Some flexibility with the run sheet is great, but don’t sacrifice what’s truly important for a 15 minute unplanned MC attempt at standup. Make sure everyone who is speaking knows how long they have, and how critical it is to stick to those times! Your kitchen is doing their absolute best to feed anywhere from 60-150 people all at once: don’t lose the whole flow of your night because people didn’t realise how critical the timing of their part was. Especially towards the tail end of the night:
Don’t put out dessert during prime time dance-time. This is a classic one. If you want an absolute pumping dance floor and have a quality DJ or band.. there’s 2 things that can kill the dance floor dream. The first is obvious: you have to have friends who want to dance to have a great dance floor! Haha. Invite fun people, have a fun time, it’s that simple. But the second one is less obvious: If there’s one thing that your fun friends will stop dancing for.. it’s dessert! Over and over again I’ve seen dance floors empty right as they start to get exciting because all of a sudden - dessert is on the table. And I DON’T blame people for leaving for dessert! Often, if they don’t eat it quick enough, it’ll get cleared by over-eager venue staff who are looking to get cleanup done as quickly as possible!
If you are struggling with working out who would be best to MC, or simply can’t find someone who strikes the balance of fun WITH a healthy dose of run sheet-care.. hit me up! Some of my packages even include MC work as a complimentary extra.