No alcohol or dancing at reception

Hi. I'm having a photobooth at my wedding, and it's because I recently attended a wedding with one. It turned out to be my absolute favorite part of the evening! I would highly recommend a photobooth. The guests will have a blast putting on props from the prop box and making silly faces. Plus a lot of companies offer a scrapbook for you that a second copy of everyone's booth photos goes into for your own memories.

Maybe have your reception more of a backyard bbq style party, with yard games like ladderball and cornhole

I dont see why dancing would be a problem with Christians, Im a Christian and the first question i asked my preacher was if we could dance at our reception. As long as the music is tasteful and there is no dirty dancing/bumping and grinding, it shouldnt be a problem unless your church is Baptist. If it is Baptist you will be lucky to be able to use music. Ive always been told that games are tacky at the reception, and unless you have a lot of kids there it probably wouldnt work. Id try a photobooth, if i were you. i can understand no alcohol, we arent having alcohol either because our reception is being held on church grounds which dont allow booze in any form. We are toasting with sparkling white grape juice.

I can understand. Neither my FH or I drink so we will not have alcohol (I dont even think a cash bar) but i think dancing should not be a problem unless the venue does not permit it. As long as it is tasteful you should be ok... from one former party girl turned good girl to another :o)

I agree with Sara P. If you aren't going to have music or dancing, a backyard BBQ style party with yard games would be more suitable - you'll need to have a lot going on to keep your guests entertained. But honestly I don't see why dancing would be a problem with Christians unless your reception venue doesn't allow any music.

Thanks for all the feedback! I definitely dont want to have a tacky wedding. I want people to have fun but in a classy and modest way. We already booked our venue and it will be an evening wedding in February. There will definitely be music. We will have live musicians at the reception. We attend a baptist church that has a mix of people. The church isn't super conservative but I am not sure if people would dance or not because traditionally baptists do not promote dancing.

Well I wont tell you what should or shouldnt be a problem at your wedding so I will just give suggestions. I have been to plenty of weddings with no alcohol or dancing and they were still nice and fun. Well you will more than likely have to do a program so you wont be just sitting there waiting for games and stuff to happen. Have some people to sing, give people the opportunity to speak (your fam), you both can mingle after people eat, have a photo booth, just keep people busy to fill in the time (they will be talking and laughing with you anyway), also Ive seen at some weddings when the bridal party come in they have a procession line where all guest get to greet and congratulate the couple and comment to the to the bridal party (this will take alittle of your time. You should have a hostess to coordinate this day usually it will be the coordinator or the MOH. But just make a program and put what you want to happen at your reception.

Also for music you can have some christian/gospel music playing in the background while people are eating or instrumentals.

I don't think no dancing/no alcohol is tacky at all! I have some VERY conservative Christian relatives who don't dance, I think it just depends on your church and denomination.

I think a brunch/garden party/bbq-style party or something else in the afternoon would be really nice. I wouldn't expect it to necessarily last as long as a reception with alcohol and dancing, but that doesn't mean it will be any less wonderful!

My SIL didn't have any dancing at her wedding, but she had some cute games, including the one where people gave questions to the MC, who then asked the bride and groom (who were sitting back to back), and they had to answer by raising either their own shoe or their new spouse's shoe. For example, Who is the better driver? or Who is the picky eater?

I too am a Christian and I think you should follow what you think is acceptable, with that said I would have no problem with music at the reception nor the dancing, I love to dance, as long as the music is tasteful and there is no ganster rap with all the curse words. The alcohol is also a personal choice we are not providing it at our dinner only reception at a restaurant, but there is a bar there for those who wish to purchase it if they want, I also don't have a problem with them bringing it into our private dinning room.

First, that would not be tacky at all!

We had a really free-form reception that didn't include dancing. We did have music playing, but I didn't see a single person dance. It was sort of a garden-party style wedding. We brought lawn games with us, but I forgot to put them out. We did have alcohol, but no one overindulged, which was great.

Our reception was full of beautiful lake views, fantastic casual food, and great conversation. We had a DIY photobooth that cost us literally nothing that was very fun. Some people went swimming or kayaking, especially as the reception died down and the real die-hards built a fire in a fire pit and had s'mores late that night as H and I left.

I say, if you have music and people choose to dance, great. I wouldn't let it bother me one way or the other.

My mother is a pastor. My dad is a deacon. I've been in the church since I was conceived and am currently the youth & music director. lol

We dance to Christian music and the oldies. Nothing wrong with "My Girl"...There's a host of Christian music that you can dance to and have fun without it being raunchy. It's your family and close friends, it's not a club. There's even Christian reggae to dance to. lol

I've always wondered how people who say, no dancing at the wedding handle it when the music is playing and someone gets up and dances...

However, if you are dead set against dancing. You can do one of those mad libs at each table, the scavenger hunts, that shoe game, have some performances (bands, instrumentals, solo, praise dancing, etc.) The photo booth is always a hit.

Also, you can have sparkling apple cider for toasts and mocktails. Just speak with your caterer/venue. We have that option for all of our guests who do not drink alcohol.

I understand not having alcohol, but you might consider having a nice afternoon reception if you havn't booked yet, it would be really nice to have your ceremony in the church and then have the reception on a cruise around the harbour, or do like sara said with the outdoor and yard games and stuff like that.

Though if you have it at night some dancing is nice, even if its just inbetween games with some slow songs.

I went to a wedding once that had a puppet show and a flea circus, but no dance floor. It was... well, it was entertaining, but we still left wondering why there hadn't been dancing, 'cause we'd been looking forward to it.

It's your wedding and you can do it as you please, but I'm also a Christian and have never been told that weddings do not have dancing. Dancing a part of celebrating. You can leave off the alcohol as many weddings do that and as long as you warn your guests what to expect it shouldn't be an issue. Like some of the other Christians said, you can have tasteful music and dancing, but not if it's not what you want.

So excited about your decision and your marriage! we have decided to hire a caricature instead of a photobooth and we are going to have pictures of our grandparents on their wedding day along with our parents and some of our engagement pictures. We want to have some disposable cameras on the tables for people to take their own pictures and a chocolate fountain and some kind of sweet bar....we haven't decided if its gonna be a candy bar, a pastry bar, or a donut bar lol. We have major sweet tooth syndrome! On each table we will have an engagement picture of us, and everyone gets their own favor. Other than that , the traditional father daughter dance, our first dance, the cake....haven't decided about the garter toss, but definitely the bouquet toss. Mostly everything though is to honor God. Our favors, our invitations, everything. We even are using instrumental music, mainly from the swing era, to move away from lyrics that may hinder our faith and use Christian music as well. We probably won't have dancing besides thr traditional dances. Now, I'm not saying I don't like to dance lol because I do! I believe that dancing can be a reflection of celebration and praising God, but sometimes people get carried away haha so we just decided as a testimony of our faith to not have one, to avoid the situation all together. And I'm excited for the day!!

And honestly, whenever I go to weddings, I'm mainly entertained by the people I sit with lol and I have been to A LOT of weddings these past two years. Yeah its fun to have a photobooth and activities, but its who you mingle with and tell jokes with that you remember. And as long as you have food and cake, I don't see what there's to complain about lol

Hi Kathleen,

There was just a similar post in the Boston forums... you may want to check that out for ideas!

Hi Kathleen!

Congratulations on your engagement.

As a DJ, I can tell you that dancing is a very big part of any reception. The key to keeping it clean is to find the right DJ for you. Someone who specializes in Christian music.

We subscribe to a music service that provides us with over 50 songs per week. Top 40, Country, Rock, Christian, and every other Genre you can think of. That being said, it's entirely up to you. The most important thing to remember is, it's your day.

In regards to photo booths, that is another service we offer. Photo booths have gone from an afterthought to the mainstream and a must have. The great thing about photo booths is that you don't need to worry about parting gifts for your guests. Each one of your guests can take home a fun and happy memory of your day and be reminded of it for years to come.

Good luck in your search and god bless.