Welcoming your wedding guests, Rainmaker Style!

Wedding guests are an integral part of any wedding. Especially in India where we follow the philosophy of “Atithi Devo Bhava”(The guest is god). So welcoming the guests to the biggest day of your life should be done with some flair and panache. If you are not so sure how to welcome the wedding guest could go about doing that, maybe the following might give you a bit of inspiration.

Sticking to the local traditions

We have had the good fortune of handling a lot of destination weddings. And in our experience of planning and executing these events, we have come to the realisation that adding a bit of the “traditions of the land” makes the events much more endearing. Welcoming the wedding guests is a great segment to implement this. 

Traditions range from just giving a floral garland to hiring local artists to welcome the guests personally. For Band Baaja Bali, our Bali destination wedding, we hired local artists to welcome the guests. The guests absolutely loved the small welcome party. We also hired local artists as Thai Apsara’s for Phuket Fantasea, our Thai Destination wedding. The Thai apsaras gave out oranges to the guest, which was a Thai gesture of welcome.

  • Traditional Balinese welcome party from a Bali destination wedding.
  • Orange bearing apsaras from a Phuket destination wedding.
    Even in India, we have always stuck to local traditions to invite wedding guests. For the engagement ceremony of Sasikala Britto, we employed traditional Kerala artists to bring in some Malayalee swag into the functions. This included Pulikkali and even an elephant.
  • Belly Shaking tigers from our own Kerala
  • The majestic elephant, the best way to welcome your wedding guests

Using Music to welcome your wedding guests

The best way to amp up any wedding function is to add music to it. Big fat Indian weddings aren’t complete without Bollywood, so why not go all the way and welcome your guests with a Bollywood brass band. Even Dhol and Nagadas are also making a huge comeback. Nothing like Bollywood brass to bring back nostalgia. If you want to hype up the Malayalee swag, then Chanda Melam is the way to go. Every Keralite connects with a Chenda Melam instantly and no one else parties like a Keralite, we gotta tell you that, The traditional Panjavadyam.

The party starts early for wedding guests!

Welcoming your wedding guests with a refreshing alcoholic or non- alcoholic beverage is always a good idea. But a traditional drink station is a thing of the past nowadays. We can always improvise and be creative with the way in which the drinks are served. That’s how we came up with the “Drinks princess”. Female Artists clad in extravagant costumes who served welcome drinks to all the guests.

  • The drinks princess in all her glory
  • We have also served drinks in huge syringes as centrepieces. It was a huge hit among the guests!
Shots! shots! shots!

A bag of goodies for the wedding guests!

A bag of mementoes or personalized knick-knacks would be a perfect way of welcoming your wedding guests. Especially if you are planning a destination wedding. Your goodie bag could have information about the destination, some sort of local memorabilia etc.

We put together such a goodie bag for Band Baaja Baali, our Baali destination wedding, with things that the guests need for their stay in Bali.

A nice little welcome package.

Welcoming your wedding guests is one of the most important parts of a wedding planning process. The way you welcome the guests creates a lasting first impression in the minds of the guests. So it has to be done with the utmost care and professionalism. Did you like the way we welcomed the guests at the weddings mentioned above? If you did give us a call.