Wedding Programs - Yes or No?

We're having a non-religious, short ceremony and will skip programs. I don't think they're necessary unless you are doing something very involved and long that people are not familiar with.

I think programs are only necessary when it's a unique or religious ceremony where your guests might not be familiar with the format. Outside of that, personally I think they are a waste of money and I'd spend your budget somewhere else!

I really don’t think it’s necessary. The only wedding that I’ve been to that had a program was my cousins. If any of the other weddings that I’ve been to had programs I have no idea and can’t recall because I didn’t see or look at it. If you’re having a more unique wedding timeline for example if you’re having cocktail hour in a different location on the venue and then you need everyone to go over to another location on the venue type of deal then maybe, but typical people understand the general gist of weddings. If someone takes the mic, people will obviously assume to get back to their seats and be respectful type of deal. Plus a lot of guests don’t even look at the program. After the ceremony they’re so busy socializing during cocktail hour that they just go with the flow.

I think they're an unnecessary expense in your circumstances. We didn't have them for our short outdoor ceremony - everyone was able to follow along. With that said, the last wedding we went to was a full Catholic Mass, and we appreciated that they had programs, because we're not Catholic and it allowed us to follow along.

View Quoted Comment Thanks for the responses everyone! I would much rather spend the money on something else but was worried guests would be missing a program.

Programs can certainly be skipped. I don’t think it’s necessary for guests to know step-by-step what’s occurring at a standard wedding ceremony. But, instead of programs, we’re placing a card on each seat. On one side it will have our “unplugged wedding” information and on the other side it will list fun facts about FH and I (and about the local area). The plan is to have 3 different sets of fun facts so that guests sitting next to one another have different info.

I had initially thought I would have programs for my wedding, but after I attended a wedding a couple years ago, I noticed that after the ceremony, there were SO many programs left all over the ceremony space. Personally, I don't think they're worth the cost, unless you have something unique or religious-based in the ceremony that guests won't all be familiar with, then in that case I would recommend programs. Otherwise, guests will quickly read through them once, and then they leave them behind and it's another thing to clean up later.

Definitely not required. I'm not having them either.

I’m also having a short (30 minutes or less) outdoor ceremony. My original idea was to have programs and glue a popsicle stick at the back so, the programs would turn into fans for the guests but then again, it would just be an extra cost and another item that would be left behind because they would only use it for about 30mins so, I don’t know if it’s worth it.

I had a 10 minute outdoor non religious ceremony - no programs needed.

It was for me just because i had an outdoor ceremony and i felt like it was good to just have something people could use for shading or fanning themselves haha but also i just printed my own so it wasn't a hassle or expensive. but generally if you're not having a long ceremony, religious ceremony, or bilingual, then it should be ok to skip them!

View Quoted Comment That’s exactly what my plan was too. I’m leaning toward not spending the extra cost. Honestly I don’t want to see how many get left behind and not used.

View Quoted Comment Yeah I might go ahead and skip it if I can’t find a good deal lol. There’s some big trees in our outdoor ceremony space so the shade might be enough, we’re also having it in the evening so it should be cooler anyway.

Not necessary! And honestly, they are a total waste.

Just adding to the majority: programs aren't necessary for most weddings.

If the ceremony is religious, cultural, or has unusual elements that guests may be confused by without context, then they can be helpful so that guests can respect and enjoy the significance of those elements.

Even many "offbeat" ceremony aspects, like doing a wine box instead of a unity candle or whatever, the officiant will explain to the guests as it happens, so it doesn't need to be in a program.

Especially for a short and non-religious ceremony, they definitely aren't needed. Our ceremony was a half hour Christian ceremony and we didn't bother with them. It was a straightforward service and even our non-religious guests knew what was going on the entire time. The only thing that might have potentially confused guests was that we did a unity cocktail directly after taking communion. The worship pastor from our church was playing a song during communion and just kept playing it through the unity cocktail. When we were done, our pastor just explained what had happened. He also announced that we were taking communion before we did it, so everything was explained and the guests weren't in the dark about what was going on.

We skipped programs and simply had a QR code for guests to scan which included our program, dinner menu, wedding party, etc. It was an affordable option which worked well for us and our guests as they had this link on their devices all evening and didn't have a bunch of paperwork to carry around.

I didn’t buy those. Sounded like a waste of time and money to me 😂 I try not spend extra on anything that wasn’t needed.