How To: Get Guests Mingling

1. Order badges of honour for guests, printed with each person’s relationship to you, a funny nickname or even a favourite in-joke to spark conversations (£3 each, cafepress.com/makemmingle).

2. Swap a traditional table plan for escort cards handed out at the drinks reception, then write instructions on the backs like “Ask Grandma Rose for her apple crumble recipe” and “Tell Martin about your trip to Florence”.

3. Put guests into teams and turn the pre-dinner drinks into a get-to-know-you pub quiz, with questions about you and the groom through the years. The prize: Cotton tees that reads “I won Alex and Emily’s wedding quiz and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!”

4. Place your favours in a single central location rather than on the tables, and label each with a guest’s name. Ask people to pick a favour at random from the pile, then encourage them to work the room until they find the true owner.

5. Keep ’em on their toes by placing the drinks reception, dining area and dancefloor in different parts of your venue. Creating movement throughout the party keeps people from settling into a single spot, surrounded by people they already know.

6. Get strategic with your table plan and seat people with common interests or age groups together (eg, club kids at Table 4, sports fans at Table 7) so they’ll have lots to bond over.

7. But don’t isolate anyone. While creating whole tables of guests who have never met sounds like the ideal way to force them to interact, people are generally more confident when they know a few people. Aim for a 50/50 percentage of existing and potential friends on each table.

8. Laminate funny photos of all the guests and use them as placemats on their table, but not at their seat. Story-swapping will ensue.

9. If your venue offers the option, go with circular seating. Round tables of no more than 10 guests make it easier to chat with the entire group, not just the person next to you.

10. Compose a sweet or jokey line of introduction about each of your invitees and print it on their neighbour’s place card (but avoid anything rude or embarrassing, of course).

11. Give the most outgoing guest on each table a monogrammed chef’s apron and hat and ask him or her to carve a joint of meat for their group. They’ll naturally fall into the role of MC for the table.

12. Play a modified version of musical chairs during the wedding breakfast by asking every other guest to move one seat to their left after each course.

13. Q. What’s the best way to encourage strangers to ask each other questions? A. Place an ice-breaking trivia game on each table. The Wedding of My Dreams sells mini boxed sets with pretty, wedding-appropriate designs (£5.40 for a pack of four, theweddingofmydreams.co.uk).

14. Hey baby, what’s your sign? Place a card with a bad pickup line (the cheesier the better) under each guest’s side plate and announce the gag between your starter and main course.

15. Kick off the evening party with a floor-filling line dance and mini-lesson. Our picks? A Scottish Ceilidh or Texas Two Step – but, please, let’s retire the Hokey Cokey and the Funky Chicken.