If you’ve been to a wedding reception before, odds are you’ve encountered a most annoying tradition during the dinner. You may even have helped perpetuate the tradition, unaware of how tedious it is for the bride and groom. Now that it’s your turn to be married, it’s a tradition you will want to avoid at all costs. We’re talking, of course, about the glass clinking for a kiss. Sure, it starts out innocuously enough. Someone clinks their silverware against a glass and the wedding couple smooches. But soon people are clinking every three minutes, the noise is deafening, and the wedding couple can’t enjoy their dinner. Don’t let this happen to you. Tell your guests before the meal starts that there will be no clinking. If they want to compel you to kiss, your guests will have to:
Sing a Romantic Song
If they’re going to interrupt your dinner, you should get something out of it as well. Have your guests serenade you with at least one verse of their favorite romantic song. Some guests will be too shy to come sing, which will save you a few interruptions, and those who do will be either charming or hilariously awful. It’s pretty much a win-win.
Provide Advice to the Couple
A line of people getting up one after the other to give you a bit of advice on your new marriage is infinitely preferable to the sound of silverware on glass. You might actually learn a thing or two that will help in your married life together, and if not you’re sure to have a few comedians in the crowd whose advice will entertain everyone. You could even have your maid of honor write down the best bits of advice, so you can put them in your wedding album.
Share a Romantic Story
Weddings are celebrations of love, so it makes sense to have your guests tell a romantic story to ‘earn’ their wedding couple kiss. Partners can tell how they met or a memorable date with their significant other. Or you could flip it around and have your guests tell the crowd a memory they have of you as a couple, the more potentially embarrassing, the better.
Kiss Their Partner First
Here’s another good way to reduce the number of times your meal is interrupted, while still keeping the celebration of love going. In order to get the wedding couple to kiss, guests must bring their significant other up in front of everyone and smooch while you applaud. It gives them a taste of their own medicine, in a fun and playful way.
Answer a Question About the Bride and Groom
Here’s a way to turn the kissing ‘game’ into an actual fun game for everyone involved. Have your maid of honor or best man prepare a list of trivia questions about you and your partner. To make you kiss, the guest must answer the question correctly. If they answer right, everyone learns something about the wedding couple and you smooch. If they answer wrong, there will be no smooching and they’ll have to sit back down. Bonus points for having a buzzer for wrong answers.
We all know the glass-clinking custom is annoying. But don’t eliminate it; make it better. Any of the above options will be more fun for you and your guests.
