Good Advice: Welcoming your guests for your ceremony

Over 30-some years of working with brides to plan their weddings, I have noticed that greeting and seating guests for the wedding ceremony is something few think about. With so many details to attend to, who can blame them?

But I'd like to suggest that your guests' first experience of your wedding day is worth a few moments of thought and planning.

First, plan to have at least one couple act as hosts. Their job is to greet guests as they arrive, direct them to the coat room, restrooms, water fountain and guestbook. Select someone who is outgoing and/or well-known to the majority of your guests. Selecting hosts also relieves your parents of the responsibility of greeting people and allows them to relax (if they choose) before the ceremony begins.

Hosts can also help "herd" guests into the church to be seated so your ceremony can begin on time. I find that many guests stand around and talk until the last moment and then the ushers find it challenging to get everyone seated because they come in a bunch just before the procession is supposed to start.

Ushering is another neglected part of most wedding plans. Most people asked to be ushers have no idea what to do! Ushering is a "lost art." Let me give you a few practical tips: First, usher your guests down the 2 side aisles of your church, rather than the center aisle. Why? Guests will always move to the center because they want to see you, the beautiful blushing bride and the procession. Ushering down the side allows them to fill in each pew. If you usher down the center, guests will plop down in the first few feet of the pew, causing everyone else to have to climb over them to get to the open seats. Second, select 2 ushers for each aisle. That way, one usher can be taking people to their seat while another is lining up with the next group of guests ready to go.

Ushers offer an arm to the female guest and walk her to the first open pew or row; her spouse (or male companion) and children follow. The usher stops just before the pew and guides her into the row; her companion/family follow her into the row. If there is a program, the usher hands the program to the spouse. Single women are ushered individually. Single men walk next to the usher to their row.

Why bother? A church wedding is probably the most formal occasion most people ever attend. Ushering enhances that experience for guests and helps create the quiet, elegant, orderly atmosphere you want to surround you at this moment-of-a-lifetime. You have chosen a church wedding because you want God to be present and to bless your marriage...and that is a deeply significant hour, worthy of the effort.

Have a wonderful wedding!
That's my two pennies.