Today on the blog, I’m sharing a post written by Heart Smith about various wedding reception activities. There are so many ways to have fun and to create lasting memories for your wedding day photos!

There are plenty of ways to get great wedding photos and this pretty much goes without saying, given that there’s a whole sub-industry of photography devoted to just such occasions! Still, there are many tried and true styles of wedding photography and it’s always interesting to see how people can innovate and come up with new or particularly striking images.

These days, some of the most unique wedding photos tend to come from different kinds of reception activities. It’s become fairly trendy, at least with younger couples (millennials, mostly), for receptions to include these activities. They keep guests entertained, help to maintain a light, fun atmosphere, and ultimately set a wedding apart with specific memories that won’t blend in with those from other parties. And some of these activities really can produce fun photos that make for great additions to the average wedding album.

Destination Walks

This is a little bit more involved than some of the following ideas, because it requires that a couple have a destination wedding in the first place. Nevertheless, such weddings have been trendy of late, so we may as well include it! The idea is that if a wedding reception is happening at a beautiful destination – a tropical Caribbean beach, a rented estate in the English countryside, a scenic overlook in a national park – there ought to be designated walking paths set up as their own activities. Such paths can be marked by something as simple as small lanterns on temporary posts, or anything similar, and they can turn the destination itself into a reception activity – and lead to plenty of lovely, intimate photos of couples and guests taking a few minutes to walk about.

Lawn Games

Lawn games (or beach games as some might say) might just be the trendiest activities out there for wedding receptions, particularly among younger crowds. The specifics can vary, and may include anything from a badminton court to a few side-by-side games of cornhole. No matter the specifics though, these kinds of games seem to get guests feeling relaxed and festive, and they can lead to a lot of great still shots of smiling, laughing friends and family members!

Casino Corners

Casino corners aren’t uncommon at modern wedding receptions, and these days people can set them up in all sorts of cool ways. The tradition is to hire a real card dealer and have a poker table or two set up for people to enjoy if and when they want throughout the party. But it’s become easier to offer some other gaming options as well. The online casinos based in New Jersey provide players with free spins for their games, which basically means online casinos can be enjoyed – to a point – without any real-money deposits being required. Setting up these kinds of games, perhaps on tablets or well-camouflaged computers, around a poker table, can basically complete the corner. This can lead to some really cool photos, either specifically of people playing games or of the whole casino area with the wedding visible in its surroundings.

The “Wheel o’ Fun”

This increasingly popular attraction goes by a few different names, but the general idea is that a large wheel is set up with different activities set around its perimeter for whomever gives it a spin. It’s sort of Wheel-o-Fortune-meets-Truth- or-Dare, if you will. There’s an excellent example of it shown in a piece on fun and quirky wedding games that, incidentally, has a few more good ideas of its own. In that case, the wheel can land on things like “Bride and Groom kiss,” or “show us your best dance moves,” etc. This can basically be a gold mine for a wedding photographer. The actual spinning of the wheel, the attention from those watching, and the resulting action can all make for great shots.

Classy Hats

Classy hats may not sound like an activity in and of themselves, but the reference here is basically to receptions that include dress-up aspects aside from the traditional, silly photo booths. That might mean classier hats (bowlers and top hats for men, derby hats for the ladies, etc.) as opposed to the pure costuming that happens in photo booths. Of course there’s still an element of pageantry to it all (which is basically the whole point), but in this case there are actually some really cool photos to be had sometimes. A couple might be wearing hats ironically or in a silly way, but captured in the right moment, from the right angle, they might just look great!