Ideas To Make Your Wedding Ceremony More Fun
- Jan 30
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 1
Fun wedding ceremony ideas!
Planning your celebrant wedding ceremony and looking for ways to make it even more fun, interactive, high-energy, and full of laughter? Read about how some previous Kickass Couples have begun their wedding day as they mean to go on, by getting the fun (and sometimes the booze) flowing right from the start!
✦ Include a ceremony quiz!
fun wedding ceremony ideas - a great easy way to get all your guests involved, and to see just how well you know each other before you say your vows. This can be done in a number of ways.
Just the two of you: in the style of the (very old!!) Tv show ‘Mr and Mrs’, or the 'shoe game' (often played at wedding receptions, but why not make it part of the main event AKA the ceremony?!). For this, I would ask questions such as ‘who is most likely to get lost?’ or ‘who takes the longest getting ready in a morning?’ as well as some more specific questions relevant to the two of you. You can do this just as the couple and holding up voting paddles, or by whipping off your shoes and sitting back-to-back holding up the relevant shoe to indicate your answer - you don’t know what answer your partner is giving, but all your guests can see whether you agree or disagree!
✦ Getting everyone involved: guests can be encouraged to answer questions, either with voting paddles (very good for a visual representation of the answers and looks great in photos!) or voting by cheering for each name in turn.
(Laura and Corey went for pics of their faces!
Photo: Emis Weddings)
✦ Standalone or integrated throughout: You can choose to have a designated quiz question section, or to have it integrated throughout and linked to the specific details of your love story (this way is my preference!) So for example I could say "They met online in 2021... but which of them was topless in their profile photo?" or "Which of them arrived stressed, dishevelled, out of breath, and 15 minutes late for their first date?"
Sara and Dave took this to the next level. They decided they wanted full-on gameshow energy. So I transformed into a gameshow host and Sara's mum was my glamorous assistant, giving out a range of amazing prizes (like fridge freezers, roller skates, and a brand new car*) to those who shouted out correct answers.
*toy versions!
Photos: Andrew Heeley
✦ Drinks, shots, and cocktails
A Quaich: Sharing an alcoholic drink in a ceremony is actually a very old wedding tradition, especially in Celtic cultures. Drinking from a quaich, which is a double-handed cup, symbolises trust and sharing. You can either take it in turns to drink from it, or hold a handle each and take a drink together. Traditionally, whisky would be used - but put your own spin on it with a spirit of your choice instead!
James and Ed renamed the quaich the 'goblet of death' (a call-back to a family in-joke mentioned earlier in the ceremony) and it was filled with a mixture of Welsh gin provided by James's dad to represent their links to Wales, and Ed's dad added homebrewed Elderflower wine.
Shots: who doesn’t love a shot? (Some people, apparently... they can always have a shot of squash instead...) You could kick things off with a shot right at the start - just the two of you, or all of your guests - to calm the nerves and build a buzz. If you’re going to get everyone involved, it’s best to decant your spirit of choice into individual mini bottles. These can be handed to guests as they go to take their seats, or just put out on their chairs. If you have kids or people who don’t drink, it’s nice to have a soft drink alternative. Alternatively, you could have a surprise trolley wheeled out at the end and have everyone join you in a toast as you are pronounced married at the end. Pure party vibes.
Cocktails: cocktails can be really symbolic - combining different elements together to create a unique blend is just like a marriage really, isn’t it. So you could end your ceremony by working together to create a cocktail which represents the two of you, and then share your first drink as a married couple together. You could even then see if your venue / caterers can create the same drink as a signature cocktail for guests after the ceremony!
Hayley and Jack got their wedding party involved in creating an Espresso Martini, to a soundtrack of 'Jump in the Line' by Harry Belafonte (the 'shake shake shake Senora song)
Bubbles: Love a bit of champers? Popping a bottle has been an intrinsic part of big celebrations for centuries, so why not do it in your ceremony? You could then keep the cork as a ceremony memento.
✦ Planting something
Ok this one comes with some caveats. Because there's lots of lovely symbolism about how you are putting down roots... how plants and trees need care, attention, and the right conditions in order to thrive, and that it will thrive and grow, just like your marriage… But. If your plant or tree dies within a couple of weeks, you might take it as a bd omen. It's best to do this if you have green fingers and a good track record with plants, and always opt for something hardy with potential to last for years to come.
Hayley and Jack planed a fig plant in a pot which doubled as a guest book, because guests had been invited to help decorate it by adding a flower or symbol before the ceremony. Pic: Vicky Clayson
✦ Involving animals and pets
I love pet involvement in a wedding. Dogs are the most obvious example sa they're the most likely to be able to be present on the day, and I have had many dogs act as secret ring bearers or members of the wedding party. But we can still include your pets (whatever flavour they are) even if they can’t be there on the day. Get some giant head cutouts of them, and we can include some ‘marriage advice from the cats / hamsters / guinea pigs / lizards’ into the ceremony.
When I read out some marriage advice from the cats at Kady and Chris’s wedding, we ended up with mentions of licking bumholes. Not something I ever thought I would be saying in a wedding ceremony, but here we are. Photo - Andy Wardle
(On a serious note: I won’t facilitate butterfly releases in ceremonies - see this article for why)
✦ Wine Box or Time Capsule
Seal up your vows (and maybe some input from guests) into a time capsule or wine box. You can then open and reread them (and drink and replace the wine) each year on your anniversary! If you want to add notes from guests, it’s good to get guests to fill those out before the ceremony starts and to give them prompts. So you could have a card and a pencil out on everyone’s chairs, with prompts such as ‘share a happy memory of the couple’ or ‘give some marriage advice’. You can padlock or hammer your box shut as part of the ceremony.
✦ Secret input from guests
On a similar note, something I have also done is gather some secret input from a select few special friends or family members. I ask them questions about what makes you work so well as a couple or what their advice for a happy marriage is, and then I sprinkle those into your script secretly so that you don’t hear it until the day itself - it makes for great genuine reactions! Another alternative - although riskier - is to ask people to add a note to a jar or box to be picked at random during the ceremony and read aloud. It depends how much you trust your mates!!
✦ Lil' surprises
Hiding rings under a random guest’s chair so that you get a surprise ring bearer always goes down well. But you could also hide some other rewards / prizes / challenges under chairs or in the ceremony space - things such as drinks tokens or make an announcement by hiding words from a phrase which they have to rearrange to work out the meaning of!
✦ Hidden puns and references
A really low-key way of adding in something interesting. I have written ceremonies where I included hidden bird puns for a couple of bird-loving lovebirds. Barbershop singing references for a couple who met through their singing hobby (read more about that here!) and even a ceremony stacked with mushroom puns for some real fun guys. For a couple who run a company together I wrote a secret section into their ceremony in the style of an appraisal / performance review. And, for a couple who met and bonded over Dungeons and Dragons, I wrote their story in the style of a D&D campaign!
✦ Singalong
Aah, the good old ceremony singalong. This one depends how outgoing you and your guests are, really. It’s definitely not for everyone. But if you pick the right song and provide lyric sheets, people often get really into it. You could even give out prizes for the most enthusiastic! Attempting a cappella is a risk, so either use a backing track or if you have live musicians booked for your ceremony ask whether they’d be up for helping out!
Having said all of that, I’m a big believer in not adding things into your ceremony just for the sake of them - they have to be relevant to you in some way or reflective of you as a couple. Often, the best ideas are ones that come from getting to know you and your passions. I have had ceremonies which include embroidery. Or climbing ropes. Special handshakes. Quiz questions written on lollipop sticks and pulled from a jar, because that’s how the couple plan their date nights.
Don’t feel pressured to include 'extra stuff' into your ceremony because you feel like you should - it will just end up feeling gimmicky rather than meaningful and authentic.
Any celebrant ceremony which tells your story, includes entertaining anecdotes, and encourages great personal vows will already be way more fun than the ‘standard’ ceremony.
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