A professional MC should be seen as another vital ingredient in addition to the bride & groom on the most important day of your lives!
Your friend may or may not be an experienced public speaker but they are most probably not a wedding coordinator. A large role of the professional MC is to coordinate with everyone at the Reception including the Bridal Party, Venue Manager, Wedding Planner, DJ, Band, Photographers and other vendors throughout the night. One of the most awkward moments occurs when an untrained friend who has been chosen by the bride and groom to MC their wedding leaves gaps in the overall presentation ultimately leading to an uncoordinated evening for you and your guests.
A professional wedding MC has the experience to take on this most important role and can focus totally on the job without the distraction of also being invited and mingling with other guests. Your friend will have divided attention and usually a few too many drinks or disappear when you need them the most mainly during all the milestone moments of the reception resulting in lost precious time on an expensive wedding day.
A professional MC will have a strong and commanding voice which is necessary to get the attention & respect of the guests especially later in the reception when things can get a bit rowdy, they will effectively and seamlessly handle any awkward situations if and when they do arise. They understand the important balance between performing their formal duties and adding humour when needed.
You've got one of your best friends who is a great public speaker to MC your wedding.
This person is great infront of an audience and has an amazing speaking voice.
The night of the wedding comes, your friend is doing great on the mic as expected but this person is also really enjoying themself, lost into the night and forgetting about important runsheet items.
They forget that speeches needed to happen 25 minutes ago.
You are going to be sending the runsheet to all of your vendors so you want to make sure you include important details such as the address and contact information for the venue, access times and contact details for all of your suppliers and be sure to add contact information for key people such as the best man or whoever from the family is going to be helping in the background on the day.
Do your speeches or same day edit during dinner, which saves you 45 minutes getting two things done at the same time, leaving more time for dancing later.
Try to have entertainment brackets between meals so that people don't get bored sitting at the table for too long.
Do your cake and first dance right after each other so that it's all out of the way and you don't have to interrupt the dance floor to make everybody sit down again.
Don't bore your guests with overly long speeches, keep each speech up to about 5 to 8 minutes maximum so guests don’t get restless and try not to have more than 4 people get up to speak.
Don't stop the music and make everyone sit down again when tea and coffee is being served. This should happen in the background and everyone will have dessert already served to their table to come back to.
Garter, bouquet and farewell arch shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes in total, so you can end your dancing music 10 minutes before the venue wants everyone out.
Sometimes people leave 30 minutes for the garter & bouquet and find that the wedding fizzles out too early. Your wedding night is precious, use every minute wisely.
