Wedding Reception Ice Breakers

Let’s just say a coworker is getting married. After the ceremony, you pick up your place card and find the table, take a seat and look at the other wedding guests sitting around you. If you’re lucky, you’ve been seated with people you know, maybe even a friend or two. But it so happens that this time you don’t know the person sitting next to you, so you politely introduce yourself, ask them how they know the bride and groom, and when conversation runs out you turn delicately to your salad. Maybe you smile and nod over the floating calla lilly arrangement to the people sitting across from you…

Guests laughing: Photo from Sweet Caroline Photos

But wouldn’t it be nice to really hit it off with this table-full of strangers, to get to know them a bit better and enjoy their company, and the wedding, that much more? That’s where the “wedding ice breaker” comes into play! If you’re planning a wedding, wouldn’t you rather see your guest comfortably chatting away, rather than stuck in awkward chit chat?

Here are some ideas to get you fired up! Your guests will love them!

Guess who!

Although this one is time consuming to prepare, it’s great fun (especially if you’re from California, like I am)!  Put pictures of celebrities that look like the guest on their place card. You can turn it into a game like the popular kids game of the same name. However you play it, it’s sure to get  the guests around the table talking, like it did at the wedding Nicky, from Cheap Wedding Success, attended.  Her celeb look-a-like was Natalie Portman.  How complementary!

Fun Facts

There are a few ways you can play this game. Here are some options, but you can work it any way you’d like to!

• Write an interesting fact about each person on their neighbor’s place card. For example, “Marcy is a brilliant mathematician who enjoys Salsa dancing on the weekends.” With these snippets of information, you’ll definitely provide enough material to strike up a conversation between your guests.
• Write 3 facts about each guest on their placecard. 2 are truth and 1 is not. The other guests at the table have to guess which fact is NOT true. (If you don’t have enough interesting facts about each guest, you could ask them to provide a couple on the RSVP.)
• Provide a list of questions starting with, “Have you ever…” and have the guests go around the table asking each other these questions.
• Cootie catchers (paper fortune tellers) are cute ways to ask questions and glean interesting facts from each guest.

Penny for Your Thoughts

Get cute little favor boxes like the one below and put a few coins inside (2000 Dollar Wedding suggests looking in collectors’ shops and online for vintage coins). Each guest opens his or her favor box, then shares with the table an important event that corresponds to the year on each coin (e.g., “In 1996, I was named best-dressed in high school”).

photo via Martha Stewart Wedding

Jelly Belly Game

Games centering around food are always a blast! This game was invented by I Love Weddings and is sure to be a hit with your guests! Jelly Belly jelly beans come in a variety of delicious and interesting flavors, such as root beer, orange sherbet, pina colada, buttered popcorn, etc. Each table gets a number of different flavored beans, and the guests need to taste each one to figure out what the flavor is.  The table that gets the most flavors right wins!

Fortune Fish

Are you independent? Are you fickle? Are you in love? See what the Fortune Telling Fish has to say about you! Little winter bride thought the fortune fish would be the perfect creative ice breaker to spark conversation. “And guess what?” she says, “It worked! Everyone LOVED it! it was hilarious.”

Do you have any creative ideas for fun and funny wedding ice breakers? Please share them with us in the comment section below!