A competition to raise money for a boy and a girl is common in modern wedding ceremonies. It is difficult to find a toastmaster who would not include such an “auction” in a special event. At the same time, the approaches and characteristics of the organization have a number of features and subtleties that affect the efficiency of raising money and the organization of the process itself. Below we will look at how to raise money in an original way for a boy and a girl, as well as what alternative options exist.
What's not to like?
At a wedding, unexpected situations may arise for guests that will make them feel awkward :
- The guest gave the newlyweds a very substantial and expensive gift or gave a large sum in an envelope, but he simply did not have any free money left for competitions;
- The guests did not expect that they would have to participate in such a competition, so they only had large bills that were not planned to be given to the newlyweds;
- The guest constantly uses a bank card, so at the time of the competition he did not have cash.
To save guests from unpleasant experiences , choose one of two options or use both:
- Indicate in your wedding invitation that you plan to hold cash competitions;
- Prepare small bills in advance so that guests can exchange their money if they wish. The exchange can be controlled by the toastmaster or witnesses.
Unusual options
Surprising a child means leaving a mark in his memory for a long time. Original competitions for children at a wedding will make kids remember the celebration they attended with admiration and delight.
- "Wedding Balls" Children are divided into two teams. Each team is given several deflated balloons, in which pieces of paper with tasks were previously inserted. One player from both teams is called up. Children inflate balloons. Whose balloon bursts first announces the task to the opponents.
- " Ariadne's Thread" Each participant is given a ribbon. The baby’s task is to wind it into a ball and find the prize. It is more interesting to play the game outside, then the ribbon can be passed through tree branches and other obstacles.
- "Cabbage". Children stand in a circle. They are given a small gift, wrapped in several layers of paper. The “cabbage” begins to walk in a circle, and each child can remove only one leaf from it. The prize goes to the one who removes the last piece of paper. In order for all the children to receive prizes, the winners need to be turned into active fans, adding pace and excitement to the game.
- "Wonder Beast" The presenter asks the children questions about non-existent animals, for example: “Who is a telebison?” or “Where does Stovirat live?”, and players must answer them in detail. Winners can be identified in several categories.
- "Find the treasure." This game is best played outdoors. All children are united into one team, which will have to go in search of treasures. The guys are given the first note, which indicates where to look for the next one. The last of the notes says the place where the treasure lies (sweets and gifts).
- Competition for children at a wedding “Bring me...”. Children are divided into two teams. The presenter calls one player from each team and asks them to bring him an item, for example, red lipstick. A point is awarded to the team whose player was the first to bring the required item. The team whose players score the most points wins.
The competition for children at the wedding in the video below turned out to be very fun:
How to do it?
So that the bride and groom are not accused after the wedding of wanting to make money from the ceremony with the help of money competitions, it is worth considering the following points:
- Do not expect that at the wedding you will be able to collect such an amount that will cover all the costs of the celebration;
- Hold 1-2 cash competitions for the wedding , giving preference to other comic competitions for invitees;
- Present and organize entertainment correctly so that it does not look like extortion. Coordinate this moment with the host or toastmaster in advance so as not to spoil the impression of the newlyweds;
- When setting the ransom amount, take into account the financial capabilities of your guests;
- Do not offer money competitions to guests with a reputation for being stingy.
Advice! If one of the guests refuses to participate, do not insist or accuse them of greed. Perhaps he doesn't actually have any money at the moment.
A selection of the most interesting
Boy or girl
The purpose of the competition is to raise money by voting guests with banknotes for the gender of the newlyweds’ firstborn. The toastmaster tells everyone present that now the guests must choose the gender of the child who will be born to the couple first. Next, there are several options for how to collect money.
Option 1
Guests put money in the groom's right (for a girl) or left (for a boy) pocket when the newly-made spouse quickly passes by them. Witnesses then count the total amount in each pocket. If there is more money in the right one, a girl will be born, if in the left one, a boy.
Option 2
Guests are given two bags (pink and blue), and guests choose one and put money into it one by one. The money is then counted and the winner is announced.
Option 3
Instead of pouches and groom's pockets, baby onesies (usually pink and blue) are used.
Dance with the bride
The toastmaster announces a dance with the bride. But to dance with a married woman, you have to pay. The groom decides how much a minute of dance will cost. If during the dance someone offers a large amount, then the bride goes to dance with him.
Advice! Dance time can be sold not by minutes, but by seconds, to make it more fun.
Buy a fork - for guests
Option 1
Before the banquet begins, during table setting, warn that there is no need to put down forks. And before the meal begins, invite guests to replenish the young family’s fund and buy forks from the toastmaster. After this, the toastmaster must go through the guests and collect money from them, giving one fork per bill.
Before holding the competition, make sure that all guests are able to pay for the forks. To do this, either warn about the competition in advance, or do not assign too large a ransom amount, or allow the bills to be replaced with candies. Otherwise, you risk getting a hungry and angry guest.
Option 2
To avoid uncomfortable situations, after announcing a ransom for forks, you can throw a hat or bag at all guests, and then distribute forks to everyone, regardless of whether all guests have paid the ransom.
Wedding lottery
For entertainment, you need to prepare lottery tickets in any form in advance and buy prizes.
When everything is ready, the toastmaster sells win-win tickets, and then announces the ticket numbers and distributes prizes. You can play anything in the lottery , for example:
- flowers;
- candies;
- chocolate;
- calendar;
- pin;
- corkscrew;
- icon;
- notebook;
- ruler;
- clothespin;
- broom;
- nail.
Important! The main condition of the lottery is that everyone who buys a lottery ticket must receive some kind of prize, so before starting the process, check if the number of prizes matches the number of tickets that will be sold.
To make this competition even more interesting , before handing out each prize, you can read out its comic description in verse or just make funny comments.
Examples in verses
Twist it into your bangs, make it look pretty, the gender is male, I’m sure, it’ll be in the stacks in no time.
The prize is great, no doubt about it, a box of chocolates for you. Only we lied a little, We chewed all the candy.
Examples of humorous comments
- To learn how to broadcast thoughts at a distance, here is (an envelope);
- A very useful household vacuum cleaner for you (broom).
There can be a lot of options for poems and comments , the main thing is that they all correspond to the prizes being awarded.
A wedding cake
After the wedding cake is brought out, the newlyweds usually cut it with their own hands while listening to music. The first pieces go to the parents, and one piece, according to tradition, must be sold to the guest .
The newlyweds promise to invite the one who buys a piece of cake to their wedding anniversary with fun competitions, and also, according to tradition, he has the right to go to the family’s house in a year and ask to feed him.
The ransom amount can be absolutely anything , it depends only on the mood and wealth of the guests and the talent of the toastmaster. The waiters serve the remaining pieces of cake to the guests.
Important! First of all, it is better to give the cake to children, because they are usually very worried that they will not have enough tasty treats, and can express their impatience with whims at the table.
Auction
The host or toastmaster announces that for the newlyweds to have a happy life, they need to collect a fund that will lay the foundation for the family budget. And guests who will take part in the auction can help with this. Next, the toastmaster sells the prepared items.
The following products can be raffled off:
- Mercedes (toy car). Starting price – 10 rubles;
- Shoes from Yana Rudkovskaya (baby booties). Starting price – 20 rubles;
- The newest stain remover (eraser). Starting price – 10 rubles;
- Bosch vacuum cleaner (broom). Starting price – 50 rubles;
- Mink coat (children's blouse). Starting price – 50 rubles;
- Vintage lighter (box of matches). Starting price – 10 rubles;
- Indian handmade carpet (handkerchief). Price – 10 rub.
To make the auction fun, that will be sold to guests until the prize is awarded This will help keep your guests excited. Therefore, you should first hold an auction and collect money, and at the end start giving out purchased goods.
Golden Rain
You can use a tradition from Armenia to collect money from guests during the dance of the newlyweds. The toastmaster may invite guests to shower the newlyweds with money during their first wedding dance. How much money can be collected in this way depends only on the couple’s ability to dance and the generosity of the people present.
Important! It is worth preparing in advance to exchange paper bills with metal coins to get a real “golden shower”.
Bride ransom
When the guests and witnesses relax, and the bride ceases to be the subject of close attention from others, according to tradition, she should “miraculously” disappear from the wedding ceremony . The kidnappers announce that they are ready to return the bride only for a ransom. The alarmed groom will have to turn to the guests for help in order to collect the amount required to ransom his beloved.
Another version of this money competition: the groom “earns” money to buy the bride with his own song and dance talent, performing his beloved’s favorite hit or dance. Money can be collected for correct answers to questions about the bride that the groom will give, demonstrating how well he knows the chosen one. Whether the answer is correct or not is determined by the bridesmaid or her parents.
Details for the competition
To comically determine the sex of a child you will need:
- pink and blue rompers,
- tray for counting banknotes,
- bag for presenting money to newlyweds,
- chopped cabbage,
- Cell phones,
- pacifier,
- toys for auction and prizes,
- two containers for searching in cabbage.
After the ceremonial announcement of the results, you can hold a small auction, the main prize of which will be a bottle of champagne, wine or cognac.
The process of determining the sex of the unborn child captured in a photo or video can be viewed later with pleasure by the bride and groom to compare the results. And guests who guessed correctly will be doubly pleased to feel their involvement in this important event.
