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How to stop your guests from leaving early?

Your wedding day is probably going to be the best and most important day of your life to date. It takes a lot of careful planning and a fair amount of money to get things exactly how you want them and for many couples, their greatest fear is that their guests up and leave before the day has come to an end. So how do you stop your guests leaving your wedding early? To help you out, we’ve compiled a selection of our favourite ways to keep the entertainment levels high and ensure your guests never want the day to end!
How to stop your guests from leaving early?
Play the best music!

Everyone dreams of a dance floor filled with happy guests dancing all night long on their wedding day. The music you play needs to be irresistible to your guests. But how do you achieve it? The simplest answer is: leave it to the professionals!

Hire a wedding band:

An incredible wedding band will not only look and sound great, but they’ll interact with your guests and most importantly, play music that is guaranteed to keep your guests on their feet. With years of professional experience at weddings and events, a professional wedding band know exactly what to play to make everyone excited to keep dancing.

There’s so much choice as well! Maybe you’d like a charming acoustic folk band, a funky soul and Motown band, a cool pop and rock band or maybe an indie and Britpop band is more your thing? Whatever your preference, a wedding band is the way to go if you want to keep your guests at your venue all night.

Hire a DJ:

Can’t decide whether to hire a band or a DJ? If live music isn’t your thing and you prefer to hear your favourite songs as they were originally intended, it’s likely that you might prefer to hire a DJ instead of a wedding band. A professional DJ will play tracks that will go down a storm with your guests. When an absolute banger comes on, there’s no way your guests will want to leave, and your DJ will know just what to play and when to keep that dance floor jumping late into the night.

It’s true that if you devise a killer playlist, you might just hit all the right notes and keep your wedding party interested in dancing all night. It can and has been done many times. But it’s really hard to choose the perfect set of songs and arrange them in an order that your guests will love. So we wholeheartedly recommend leaving your music to the professionals!

Provide a range of daytime entertainment:

If there’s a variety of things to do at your wedding, your guests are unlikely to get bored and want to leave by the time the evening arrives. Take a look at some of these fun ideas that are easy to put in place and will keep the fun-levels high all day!

  • Hire a magician
  • Hire a caricaturist
  • Lawn games – giant Jenga, bowling, Cornhole or table tennis always go down a treat!
  • Photo booth (especially if it has props!)
  • A quiz
  • Mr and Mrs game
  • Space hoppers
  • Scavenger Hunt
  • Bouncy Castle
  • Sack race
  • Piñata
  • Glitter tattoos
  • Beer Pong
  • Tug of war
  • A video guest book

Keep your guests fed!

When your guests are surrounded with a variety of delicious foods it’s unlikely that they’ll want to leave early. After your wedding breakfast, people are likely to want a sweet treat! By the time the sun goes down, they’ll probably want something more substantial to nibble on so why not choose some of these fab ideas to stop their bellies from rumbling.

  • Wood-fired pizza
  • Hog roast
  • Tacos
  • Burgers
  • Greek kebabs
  • Fried chicken
  • Gourmet grilled cheese
  • Noodles
  • Hot Dogs
  • Grazing table
  • Waffle cart
  • Crêpes
  • Pick and mix stand
  • Ice-cream van
  • Popcorn stand
  • Chocolate fountain
  • Doughnut stand

Whatever you choose, remember to ensure that all dietary requirements are catered for.

Stick to your schedule:

If your guests can see that there are some exciting activities coming up later in the day, they’ll probably want to stay and take part. Have your schedule displayed clearly for everyone to see what they’ll miss out on if they leave. And talking about evening activities, here are some great ideas that will keep spirits high once the sun’s gone down…

Evening Activities:
  • Fireworks
  • Roasting marshmallows/smores
  • Sparklers – you can get some great photo opportunities with these!
  • A scheduled last dance
  • Hot chocolate stand
  • A bonfire

Be visible!

One of the very best ways to stop guests leaving your wedding early is to make sure they can see you as much as possible. If you want your guests to dance, be on the dance floor! During the course of your wedding make sure you make a special effort to talk to each and every one of your guests as much as possible to make them feel special and most importantly, welcome. If they feel valued they are far more likely to want to stay.

Shaun Brady
Founder and Director of The Groove