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Today I am featuring a How-To Thursday sent to me from a fellow wedding blogger Kelechi!! Her blog is called Naija Wed n More! Check her out! Thanks again Kelechi for allowing us to feature you!
Her post is about wedding crashers and what you can do to avoid them!!
Wedding Crashers…What To Do…What To Do
The bane of any African wedding is planning for wedding crashers.
Or really, planning to prevent wedding crashers from appearing at the wedding that you have excruciatingly planned for however many months.
I once heard about a Nigerian wedding in Houston that had 500 invited guests. By the time you actually considered the amount of crashers, there were 800 guests at the wedding. I can’t even imagine how you would have had enough space or food for the amount of people when you haven’t planned for it.
Some brides are indifferent about wedding crashers. The simply calculate them into their total guest number and don’t give it a second thought.
Other brides (myself included), refuse to treat their wedding as the neighborhood block party, annual family or college reunion, or local church gathering.
As I continue to plan my “small” (200 invited guests) African wedding, I’ve come across several different ways to minimize wedding crashers
1. Promote “Strictly Invitation Only”
Tell everyone, their mom, and cousin that your wedding is strictly invitation only. Put in your invitation, on your save the date, or on your website. Make sure the word gets around through your family as well.
2. Keep the wedding talk with uninvited guests to a minimum
Quite a few brides enjoy talking about different aspects of their wedding especially to anyone who will listen. However, if you talk incessantly about your wedding to someone you don’t intend to invite, they may feel slighted that they don’t get to see your wedding vision come to fruition. Keep wedding talk to a minimum.
3. Have a guest list at the door with security
If you aren’t promoting to your guests that your wedding is invitation only (or even if you are), you may want to have a guest list at the door with security available to prevent crashers from entering the venue.
4. Request that your guests bring their invitations
Inform your guests to bring their formal invitations. Of course, wedding crashers won’t have formal invitations so this will help to keep them at bay.
5. Require guests to RSVP
It’s quite common for African guests to not RSVP and just attend a wedding because they were formally invited. One could require their guests to RSVP and also let them know if a RSVP isn’t received, a seat will not be reserved for them.
6. Have a destination wedding
If you want to keep your guest list to less than 100 people, any resort in the Caribbean can help you plan your wedding day. This method is the best way to foolproof your wedding from any and all crashers.
7. Protect your venue location information.
As African wedding websites have become more and more popular, it’s also a way for wedding crashers to get information on their own. The best way to avoid this is to not list the ceremony/reception venue on the website.
What I chose to do is password protect the section with the ceremony/reception information. Although, I know some couples decide to password protect the entire website.
8. Have your wedding on a not so popular day
Most couples choose to get married on Saturday as it’s most convenient for themselves and others. If you can help it, have your wedding on day like Friday or Sunday which will help minimize random people just looking for something to do, deciding to hang out at your wedding.
All of these methods can definitely help to minimize if not completely prevent having wedding crashers at your wedding. I’ve actually decided to employ several methods which include having my wedding on a Sunday, a guest list at the door, and require that my guests RSVP.
At the end of the day, you may not be able to prevent wedding crashers from appearing at your wedding, but you can definitely do what you can.
Can you think of any other ways to help minimize wedding crashers?
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11 comments:
Africans are VERY resourceful when it comes to crashing weddings. This is all great advice. In the end a crasher WILL show up, but as long as you've put the necessary security measures in place your night should go on without a hitch. (at least in theory lol)
Ok shoot me, stone me, bind me if u must but are wedding crashers really that bad???? I mean its not like they want to come and disrupt ur wedding they just want to share in ur day with you. I really dont see the harm in it. Besides Ive been to sooo many wedding with 40% of the chairs allocated for the "invited" guests empty why not fill them with ppl who actually consider you important enough to show up for your day. Where's the fun in that. Besides when it comes to African/Nigerian wedding I havent been to a wedding that the "strictly by invitation" idea goes off without a hitch....Some aunty is always pissed cos she wasnt but on the list and she'd start shouting n telling everyone how she used to cradle you to sleep as a baby....
Lola Solarin
President of the Wedding Crashers Inc.
Our Motto: If there's a wedding, whether you like it or not we're there!!!!!
Ok bye!!!
@Lola: No crashers aren't that bad in theory. When it's 5 or 10 crashers, that's usually not a problem.
But when you have the example that I used in the article (300 additional guests) as crashers alone, it becomes problematic. There are no seats, not enough food, etc., all because people want to "share in your day". That alone is a disruption. Is that fair to the people who were actually invited?
And the aunty that gets pissed because she wasn't on the list didn't want to respect that the couple had limitations with their wedding and couldn't formally invite her, otherwise, I'm sure she would have been invited.
LOL@ Lola!!
I do agree with Memi and KNaijaQueen that excess party crashers can become a problem when they exceed a certain number that you planned for. There's nothing worse than planning for 200 guests and 300 additional guests show up and eat all your food BEFORE the 200 that you invited show up!! I'm now a big fan of destination weddings o! Shut them down with this response: "of course you can crash my wedding even though I specifically said that it will be for close family and friends and I don't know you from Adam/Eve and I know that you want to come JUST to be nosy. By the way, my wedding will be in Tahiti... in 3 weeks...on a Wednesday...at 5AM. See you there." LOL
;-)
This is definitely a common issue. We were soo concerned of this that we took all the steps necessary to prevent it. 1st we hired bouncers. 2nd it was strictly by invitation. If your name was not on the list you were not getting in. 3rd - Make sure parents on both sides understand you are serious about the guest list. No aunties and uncle's friend etc. Lastly, as a contingency plan we had an extra table just in case and we told the caterer to make food for 400 instead of 300 which is the amount of guests we invited. The ceremony and Reception was perfect with no crashers..however when the partying started we had no control. Many of the crashers came in at that point but it did not bother us since everything is pretty much wrapped up. Nice Post!
Interesting
LMAOOO @ Lola!! You are a MESS!! I mean I agree with Kelechi here. Nobody minds a few crashers but nothing peeves me more than walking into a wedding hall and people are standing up because there are no more seats, or when food is finished before dancing starts, or when the crowd is so much that you can't see the bride/groom. My #1 fear is dancing into my reception hall and being greeted with 2 unfamiliar faces for every 1 familiar face...I'd like for my wedding to be a big celebration but with ppl I know are truly happy for me and ready to celebrate with me and not ppl that are just coming to comment on how cheap/razz/basic my wedding is or ppl coming to just "eat rice". Please eat rice at your house and stay there if I dont know you, loll! I've already accepted the fact that my wedding will be enourmous and that's okay b/c our parents are popular, we have a lot of friends, big families, etc. So I would like to have SOME kind of method to the madness and a large amount of uninvited guests will just make that unfeasible! So yeah I'm #TeamNoCrashers hahah!
And just for the record this post was done by Kelechi a.k.a. KNaijaQueen! Check out her blog the link is posted above!
@ LOLA..
Weddings are too expensive to cater to uninvited guests.. Maybe when you plan urs and you're looking @ around $40,000, you'll understand... Extra linens, plates, decor etc will add up!..and wait till you're looking at your wedding pictures only to see random ass ppl in there..People you dont even know, or speak to.. This is not Nigeria and we're not in the "80s any longer to have the whole village at such event...:)
I Say "Crash On"! LOL....Idk I do not just fancy or buy the idea of an invitation only wedding. For one I know too many people, who know too many people, who I would definitely forget to invite. So everyone is free to come so far you do not bring drama of any kind and your only there to wish me well. :)
Anon! THanks for the comment! Yeah I see what you are saying though! Many people feel the same way you do! If I could combine 1,000 ppl with a really sexy, glam, HOTT wedding I would! BUt I for one I'm NOT rich, hahaha! So something has to give and I would rather forget about the randoms, haha!
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