Chicken Dance
Would you like to add some excitement to the dance floor? Some activities are going to extremely popular. If you like to have fun, why not try a game of the “chicken dance”. If you love to have some fun and laughter at your party, and want the dance floor to be filled, you may want to try this.

Put numbers under the chairs. Get the guests to look under their chairs when the number is announced. Depending on your seating arrangement, you can choose to repeat the numbers at the same table, or at different tables. Write down numbers starting from one to ten.

Before the number is announced, the guests would check under their seats to find out the numbers they had been assigned to. You can use masking tape or post-it notes for this. Everyone with the number called out would be invited to hit the dance floor and do the chicken dance. This is great if you wish to let your guests mingle with other guests, especially if you have many singles at your wedding. It is also good if you have a lot of guests who do not know each other.

Multiplication
A great way to start dancing is to get your wedding group to invite other guests onto the dance floor. After one round of dancing, each guest at the dance floor will invite another guest in to dance, untill everyone is dancing together.

Hire A Dance Teacher
Many wedding couples take up dancing lessons so that they can vow the crowd with their slick dance moves. Why not invite the dance teacher to teach simple steps to the crowd? Or if you have a close friend who is a professional dancer and willing to help you at your wedding, then ask him or her to do this.

One dance floor activity that’s gaining popularity is to bring in a dance teacher for the wedding reception. As a kind of pre-dance activity, the teacher will quickly walk people through their paces on the dance floor, perhaps teaching a bit of the waltz or, for something completely different, a little bit of the tango, before the music officially begins and dancing commences.

With a dance teacher around, you get to liven up the ambience and other shy people would actually be tempted to join in and have great fun. And practically speaking, it will likely make the wedding guests feel more confident in their skills before the “official” dancing begins.

These ideas are quite, so if you are on a tight wedding budget, then you can simply use these ideas to get your guests onto the dance floor instead of hiring expensive bands or performers to liven up the mood.

1. Polaroid Wedding Scrapbook
Buy Scrapbook Paper. They are usually squarish and the designs are lovely. Get your guests to take Polaroid and you can get your wedding helper to paste the pictures on the scrapbook paper. They can write their comments by the side. This will definitely be more personalised than the normal guestbooks.

Besides, years later when you look at the guestbook again, you can remember who attended your wedding and what they have worn. In addition, you only use the amount you need. Some guestbooks are very thick, but the messages are short. So, you end up with a guestbook that only has a few pages filled. With scrapbooks, you get to decide how many pages to be put together. You can simply bind the papers together. You can add things to the paper to decorate it. It’s up to your imagination.

2. A Very Long Piece of Paper
Instead of using a conventional wedding guestbook, just use some paper and get people to sign there. You can then laminate the paper and keep it. Or you can frame up the paper.

3. Small Coloured Art Paper
You can get art paper from many bookstores. Each person will get one piece of paper. You can help them by giving them some questions to think about. One of my friends asked us to pen thoughts on how to make a marriage last and they read them out during the ceremony. So, you can compile this together and make a little notebook. Alternatively, you can get photo books and then slot the papers into the sleeves.

4. Get Free Postcards And Mail Them
In Singapore, we get free postcards in restaurants and shopping centres. Collect in advance those with lovely designs. It will be great if there is enough white space. Then, you can get your guests to write there. In fact, you can even get someone to help you paste stamps on them, and write your own address on them. The Singapore Post Office offers a personalised stamp service. Use your wedding photo to make stamps if you like. Ask your guests to mail their suggestions on how to have a happy marriage to you whenever they feel like. Imagine the lovely surprise you get occasionally. I wonder whether some will send the postcards out a few years later when they chance upon the cards again. 

5. Make Use Of All Your Wedding Photos
When I went to Perth with my husband to take our overseas wedding photos, we came back with more than 300 photos for us to choose from. Since we are expecting about the same number of guests, perhaps we can get the guests to choose a photo they like and write their well wishes behind. This is worth thinking about. Conversely, you can print the photos out on postcard paper, and do the same as point number 4.

6. Use Other Materials
Why limit yourself to pen and paper? Use recycled materials such as plastic, cloth, and other things for your guests to write on. They can use glitter or fabric paints to sign their names. If you love to sew, get your guests to use fabric markers and paint to write their names or draw pictures on small pieces of multi-coloured square cloth, then you can make a patchwork quilt. You can buy cheap cloth or just recycle your old clothes especially now you may be moving into a new house and you have to share wardrobe space now.

7. Do Multimedia Video Guestbook
Ask your guests to introduce themselves and give their well wishes on video. Allow them time to prepare their 30 second speech. You can do this in groups, so the video will not end up excruciating long. Perhaps you can also ask them other questions on how they find your wedding, your wedding photos, the venue, the crowd, the invitations or other things. Perhaps you can print the questions on cards and they will randomly get one, so that you can remember the wedding through many perspectives. Then after that, make it into a video and post it online. If they are shy, then post the video on your personal website with a password to watch.

As you can see, these unique wedding guestbook ideas are just some that I could think of. I’m sure you will have lots more ideas for your guestbook. Perhaps you can mix and match some of the suggestions. Have you encountered any interesting ideas? Share with me and other readers!

While waiting for the dinner to start, which can be a big problem in Singapore, you can use this time to occupy their time. Once the Polaroids are taken, get someone else to place them into an album, and get the guests to write their greetings on nice coloured paper. This will be a change from the traditional guestbook, where it?s hard to remember who had signed the book especially with some of them having squiggly handwriting.

The photo album could be further decorated with materials you buy from scrapbooking shops. This idea could be further developed for those who are more creative.

With this, you have an instant photobook. Those who come a little later can get to see all the photos and the greetings. It is also a good reminder on who had attended your special occasion. For those who prefer digital cameras, you can get a portable photo printer to print out.