I’ve recently been wondering what makes the feel of one wedding different from others.
It rarely comes down to individual features – it’s difficult to imagine just one thing making or breaking it in that regard.
It might be something to do with the mix of guests – some weddings can have a heavy bias towards more formal, reserved guests, whereas others have more free-spirits and fun-lovers. But more and more I’m forming the opinion that the amount of control exercised over proceedings has a large influence.
I do get the impression that the more a wedding is controlled and managed, the more reserved and less relaxed the occasion can feel. It’s as though guests pick up on this atmospehere and are afraid to do anything “wrong”. And there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that itself, if that is how your want your day to be. Weddings can be thought of as very serious and significant occasions.
On the other hand, weddings with an overall feel of “go-with-the-flow”are often conducted in a more fun and lively way. Guests seem to be able to let go and be themselves a bit more. They can break out of social circles and get into the spirit of the day a little more. They can help influence and form the day, rather than standing back, witnessing and observing it.
We get a fair idea of how a wedding is likely to be when we are approched by someone wanting to hire our crepe stand. When contacting us they have decided they want crepes at their wedding, (good decision) but this is something which can take many different forms. Virtually all of our clients and polite and respectful, but there is a wide variety of ways to have crepes at your wedding! Some people provide exact instructions about when to start, when to finish, the order that guests should be served, when the crepe stand should be set up and so on. Other people are happy to leave us to decide most things (perhaps because we have a lot of experience of attending weddings) and basically say: start at 8pm, we will leave the rest to you.
There is no right or wrong way. Both ways (and every variation in between) work out just fine (and mobile crepes at a wedding always turn out very well indeed!)
But the levels of relaxation and fun we can detect at a wedding often seem to be in inverse proportion to the amount of control which seems to be in place.
It’s worth bearing in mind.
