Comedians are definitely not the most common choice for wedding entertainment. Hiring a comedian can be tricky for a wedding,, but it depends on your audience. If your guests are mostly laid-back, fun, and less easily offended, comedy at your wedding can be huge fun.
You have to consider the type of material the comedian you’ll be hiring usually performs, the length of sets, kid-appropriateness, and other factors before making the final decision to hire them.
Simply put, hiring a comedian at your wedding reception can be a good idea if you do it right.
Before you hire a comedian for the reception, you need to consider the wedding preferences of your guests to make the comedy act enjoyable.
If you have a very intimate gathering of family and friends at your wedding with lots of kids in the mix, a comedy act may not be appropriate.
A small gathering makes it hard for the comedian to work the room, making the situation awkward. Plus, having a stranger take up so much of your guests’ time at an intimate reception doesn’t make sense.
But if you have more than fifty-seventy guests, they will be more open to laughing freely. However, you know best if your guests are open-minded and fun or not.
Comedy can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. So, consider your guests’ personalities before hiring a comedian.
Don’t plan a long comedy act where your guests have to pay rapt attention for more than an hour.
Your guests are there to socialize and talk to their family and friends. Just sitting around and enjoying a comedy act isn’t what they expect at a wedding.
If the comedy act is limited to 30-45 minutes, your guests can enjoy that segment of your reception freely and have time for dancing or socializing afterward.
You can’t rely on a comedy act to provide the sole entertainment at your wedding reception. People want to hear the toasts with personal anecdotes, dance to the DJ, talk to people around the party, and show off their outfits.
So, you should incorporate other segments to keep your guests entertained. Obviously, hiring a comedian and also a DJ or a band can be expensive, but that’s the only way to make it work.
If you want your guests to remember your reception as one of the greatest hits, go all out.
This hopefully goes without saying: hire a clean comedian. You don’t want to offend your guests. Comedians usually speak crassly and pick topics that are controversial, offensive, or even vulgar.
Obviously, you need to rein all that in for a wedding and have a conversation about what’s okay and what’s not when hiring someone.
Your wedding guests will most likely include children as well as teenagers, so keep them in mind before setting the boundaries for the kind of materials that can be used.
To enjoy a comedy show, the setting needs to be appropriately casual. An outdoor reception can make your guests more free to laugh out loud when compared to a fancy ballroom.
You need to think about creating the right ambience for your guests so they don’t feel awkward.
Have the drinks flowing freely so the audience can enjoy more. You can maybe start with some funny toasts to prepare your guests for the big comedy act.
If your guests are already laughing and have let loose, they will enjoy the comedy act even more.
If you want your wedding reception to be different and have some unconventional entertainment, you have options other than a comedy act. Here are some alternatives you can consider.
Tribute bands are getting very popular as party entertainment. Your wedding reception can be much more fun with tribute artists performing live music.
Adele, Whitney Houston, ABBA, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Rolling Stones, etc., are tribute bands that can perform romantic music appropriate for a wedding reception while also inciting nostalgia.
Plus, hiring a tribute band will give your guests the opportunity to click interesting pictures with the band to share on social media. Your wedding will become a social highlight for sure.
Hiring celebrity impersonators with an interesting and fitting photo op at your wedding reception is a great idea.
These celebrity impersonators are very entertaining and mimic the artist not only in style and appearance but also in speech as well as physical gestures and walks.
It can have your guests in awe, and with an appropriate background and theme for a photo op, keep them busy clicking photos and chatting with the look-alike.
While hiring magicians for your wedding, you have to worry less about the appropriateness of the act for children and more conservative guests. Everyone tends to enjoy a magic show, so you will stress less about whether it’s landing correctly or not with your guests.
A fun act can engage your guests for an hour at least. However, you should also plan other entertainment acts for the night.
Having your cousins, friends, siblings, aunts, and other close ones perform at your wedding may take some convincing, but it will definitely be a hit.
Your guests will pay much closer attention to the performances of people they know. Plus, it has a personal touch and can be very heart-warming.
But you need a serious bunch of people to execute it and rehearse regularly before the wedding. You should also screen the performances and the song list before the wedding to ensure everything is to your liking.
The best part is that this won’t cost you a thing and your guests will surely be entertained given that you have reasonably talented dancers in the family or among your friends.
Is hiring comedians for your wedding reception a good idea? Yes, it’s a great idea, but you have to plan it perfectly. Having an overly long comedy act can be asking a lot of your guests. Instead, keep a 30-45 minute clean comedy act that is unlikely to ruffle any feathers.
If the reception is very formal, guests may feel awkward to laugh out loud. However, a casual setting can allow your guests to let loose and laugh. So, before you hire a comedian you need to know your audience pretty well.
If you’re not sure whether a comedy act is appropriate, consider hiring wedding magicians. UK Live Entertainment has top-rated magicians you can choose from.
