Laughter is the Best Icebreaker

Brittanie & Justin Kingsley Wedding: 11/6/10

A wedding ceremony on the sand scheduled for mid-afternoon behind the Holiday Inn in Surfside Beach, SC left a good chunk of time between the Grand Entrance and removing the lids off the chafing dishes for the buffet. It was decided to fill in that space with a couple of special activities. These had a two-fold purpose. One, to loosen up a fundamentally shy group of wedding guests made up mostly of polite country folks, who are notoriously reserved in these kind of settings. Two, to keep things moving along, offsetting the possibility of boredom and restlessness taking its toll on their comfort. Most of the 100 folks in attendance were already seated, and had been for a good spell even during much of the preceding cocktail hour. As per our agenda, when the wedding party had finished their shooting of photos on the beach, even a little earlier than anticipated, we implemented the “Welcome” and “Grand Entrance” leading into the “First Dance.” The toasting then went smoothly, though the Best Man was somewhat nervous. I already mentioned the assemblage of guests were predominantly what I affectionately refer to as country folks. Please forgive me for generalizing, but country folks are lovingly simple. Not frilly. I don’t know what it is, but I sometimes have a little difficulty getting a rise out of them. When Brittanie and Justin made their entrance, most of them did stand up and cheer as directed. But, then quickly sat back down during their first dance. They followed my after-the-first-dance applause cue admirably well, and enjoyed the toasts, but then came that dreaded space of time which could easily precipitate a lot of questioning, like: what’s happening now, and when are we going to eat. Well, we still had about a half an hour before the food would be ready, so in order to spice things up, we did a Newlywed Game, and it was good—got the room’s attention and maintained it. Orchestrating this special activity, at this juncture, brought about a room-wide consensus of amused approval, and… laughter! The spectacle provided an entertaining splash of fun which had a ripple effect. In conjunction with letting everybody know that pretty soon, the wedding feast would be ready, I alerted them that in a little while, we’d be doing something real special to give away the centerpieces, which consisted of a nice glass vase with a goldfish swimming around. In the meantime, everyone should enjoy the music and one another’s company while Brittanie and Justin made some rounds. When the banquet captain gave me the go-ahead signal, I instructed everyone to please return to their seats and we proceeded with a Pass the Napkin activity which resulted in the appointment of an informal bar service table waiter and a winner of the glass vase, and also gave rise to a whole lot of laughter! The chunk of time had passed, it was time to eat, and folks were still laughing.