Building REALationships

As part of my commitment to serving my clients and making their wedding day as stress-free and smooth as possible, I attended a meeting of the Oahu Wedding Association last night at RumFire in the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel. I attend these wedding industry functions in order to network and get to know a lot of my colleagues. By building REALationships and getting to know one another before the wedding day, it makes it easier to work with your photographer, videographer, etc. on the day of YOUR wedding. I had a great time, spent some quality face-to-face time with some photographers, videographers, florists, and entertainers I really enjoy working with, and had some good food.

Before that, I spent the day following up with brides I met at the World Class Wedding Expo two weekends ago. I met a lot of 2008-2009 brides who are looking for something unique and different for their celebration, and many were turned on to the fact that what I can help them create is something that will make their celebration more lively, fun, unique, and memorable. So if you haven't heard from me yet or if you were strongly interested in knowing more about what I do, check out my website today! You can find it at www.ninjaentertainment.com

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Since we're talking about building REALationships, here's a good low-key icebreaker-type game you can play at the beginning of your reception as your guests arrive.

For many of your guests, particularly your co-workers, friends, and extended family, your wedding may be the first time they have met each other. So have some fun with them as they get to know one another--after all, everyone is now one big ohana/family, right?

As the guests check in, each guest is given a sheet with boxes of different categories that may describe your guests. It may look something like this:

Is one of the bride's best friends	Drives the same type of car as the groom	Owns a car like the bride
Is directly related to the bride	Works with the groom	Went to college with the bride
Traveled the farthest to be here	Lives a block away from the bride	Is wearing a tux

More categories can be added and personalized to fit the bride & groom's personal styles and tastes, and to more accurately reflect who the guests are.

During cocktail hour, guests are invited to go around to meet each guest and see if that other guest applies to any of the given categories. If that guest fits, then he or she places his signature in the box underneath the category.

And the end of dinner, the guest who has collected the most signatures wins! A good prize to reward their efforts may be to send them FIRST to the buffet line, after the bride & groom's families have gone through.

To take it a step further, you can even make this game more exciting during dinner, although a little more prep work may be involved. To do this, a few weeks before the wedding, the bride, groom, and their families get together and play the game, but instead of looking for signatures, they try to imagine who among their guests best fits each category. Hopefully they come up with 2-3 or more names per category. Each name is then put on a strip of paper along with the related category, and then put in a box.

During dinner at the reception, the guests will play bingo with their funsheets! The bride & groom will randomly pull a name out of the box, and if a guest has gotten THAT particular signature in THAT particular category, they cross out the box, just like in bingo! The first person to cross out a row, column, or diagonal wins! This addition makes mealtime much more entertaining, since the guests are actively involved rather than simply sitting around waiting for their turn to the buffet.