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Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians in the Hive! Okay, now back to wedding stuff.
That’s right, BLARG! I can’t stand when people clink their glasses with knives to make the couple kiss at a wedding. I think it’s cute once, and then it becomes this awful irritating noise that goes on forever. This happened at my friend’s wedding and it was this huge unpleasant distraction throughout the dinner. NOT COOL.
As a result, I’ve been trying to come up with alternatives to the glasses clinking.
My original thought was to just get our MC to tell the crowd that we’re not doing that and all glasses clinking will be ignored, but in a nicer way than I just wrote because that makes us sound mean and cranky. We might still go with this, but I figured it was a good idea to think about some other options that might work for us.
Hula-Hooping
My cousin and his now wife did this at their wedding and it worked out wonderfully. Seeing this work so well at their wedding is the main reason I’m even considering an alternative. If someone wanted them to kiss the person had to go up and Hula Hoop. Everyone seemed really into it and it provided some good entertainment and photo ops.
This is my dad and his siblings Hula-Hooping. Yes, they’re very WASPy and bad at it, but it was funny and my grandmother (who wasn’t at the wedding) loved it.
Some Other Type of Physical Challenge
I read somewhere that someone from a family of golfers decided that if you wanted them to kiss you had to sink a putt. Neither of us are from a golfing family, but I like the idea of someone having to do a physical challenge. Do you think the Faculty Club would let me set up a basketball net in the dining room?
Donation to a Charity
OR to the Knittings’ grad school fund…okay probably not…I like this idea (the charity one, not the selfish one!). It’s a bit more dignified and for a good cause. That being said, I’m not really comfortable asking a guest to pull out their wallet at our wedding. I know that’s common in lots of cultures, but I would feel weird about it.
Trivia
I LOVE trivia. I think Trivial Pursuit is the best game ever and Mr. Knitting and I actually got to know each other when we were both on the Reach Team (trivia) in high school. Huge nerd alert. As a result, the idea of making people answer Trivial Pursuit questions or entertaining Knitting specific trivia questions could work.
A Combination of All of the Above
We could come up with a number of challenges beforehand and write them on a piece of paper and place it in a bowl. If someone wants us to kiss they have to pull out a challenge. The challenges could be trivia questions (Knitting specific or not) or random tasks.
Currently I’d say I’m torn between doing nothing and the combination option. I’m just not sure what would work better for our guests. The tasks could be a big flop, or they could be fun. I suppose we could have the tasks ready to go, but only mention them if people don’t stop the clinking or if we get a good vibe from the group.
What’s your favourite alternative to glass clinking?
I also hate glass clinking - I’m so cranky I don’t even want an alternative! “No, people, we are not trained monkeys who will express physical affection on cue. Grumble mumble get offa my lawn.”
I like the glass clinking when it is done occasionally and sporadically throughout the night. The first wedding I ever saw it at, however, was probably much like the one you described. The bride and groom hardly ate/drank/danced the whole night without someone clinking away. So annoying/rude! I love the idea of trivia of a charity donation for a kiss.
One of the weddings I was at recently had the MC announce that they would not kiss when glasses were clinked, however, they would kiss if the table got up and sang a song - really it was part of a song like the chorus. It was quite humerous, and alot of the guests played along, which made the bride and groom pretty happy.
I was at a wedding a few years ago that did this and am planning to do this at my wedding: beforehand, give the DJ a list of all the established couples in attendance, whether it’s friends, relatives, parents etc. Then, when the glasses start clinking, the DJ calls a couple up to the floor who must have a “kiss off” against the newlyweds. It was HILARIOUS and a really fun way to get your guests involved.
Karaoke to a song with love in it. They have to sing the part where love gets said. This is alot of fun, in general, and great if there are kids at t he wedding. They generally get a big kick out of it and getting to participate.
At my cousin’s wedding, the whole table had to sing in order to get them to kiss. It was highly entertaining after a few drinks! And….no one clinked their glasses. The DJ said something to the effect of “If you want the B & G to kiss, you need to get the table to sing a song, clinking glasses will not do it.”
I DETEST the glass clinking. I heard about the idea of having the tables sing when they want us to kiss and FI is all about it. We figure, if they want to quasi humiliate themselves then we will be more than happy to smooch. If anything, it would just be ridiculously entertaining. There aren’t too many people on our guest list who would actually get up and sing infront of everyone, which is perfectly fine with us.
We plan to print some chorus verses of common “love” songs on the back of the menus at each place setting. Our DJ will also be making an announcement explaining what the deal is so that there isn’t any confusion.
We did something like what SummerCamp did - a “kiss list.” We gave our DJ a list of couples, all of them married just to be safe, and after the first round of clinking, the DJ announced that we would be doing things a bit differently… Each clinking after the first, the DJ read off one couple from the list, and that couple had to kiss instead. It was a great way to take the pressure of me (I’m not into PDA at ALL), and what some of our aunts and uncles came up with was priceless. People still clinked, but it was hugely reduced.
Like Miss Peach Tree above, I was recently at a wedding where you had to sing a song with the word “love” in it in order to get the bride and groom to kiss. It was a big hit, because it encouraged interaction at the tables while people tried to come up with good songs, but it wasn’t nearly as incessant as the annoying clinking of glasses! “Love Fool” and “You Give Love a Bad Name” were a couple of my favorites we heard that night 
I totally just demanded the glass clinkers to stop. Like, with a “cut it out” hand across the throat motion. Really festive. But hey, it worked, and they all stopped!
My cousin made whoever clinked the glasses kiss someone in an original way and the bride and groom duplicated it. One guy lifted his daughter upside down and kissed her so the groom flipped the bride and kissed her the same! It was adorable and amazing.
Trying to get guests to do an alternative to clanking glasses can either work beautifully or not at all. We really didn’t want it happening, but husband didn’t like any of the cutesy alternatives. Thankfully, we must have done such a good job at seating that everyone was too busy talking to each other to clank more than a few times. Or it could be the fact that my husband was standing behind one of his brothers the first time people did it and ended up planting a big smackeroo on his brother.
Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
I personally also hate the glass clinking. However at my future SIL’s wedding I saw the donation idea and LOVED it. I hate huge interuptions in the night like stories being told, or random songs being sung and basically opening up the mic to the entire audience. I thought the donation idea was fantastic. My aunt died this past year of cancer and I plan on having a donation jar for cancer research. I understand not wanting to ask your guests to open their wallets, but you’re not passing a hat around to each table. I thought it was a great idea, to help out a good cause with little effort.
The first time I saw the “table has to sing a love song” alternative was more than 10 years ago, and I loved it. I still love it, especially since we, and many of our guests, are big music fans. I would expect to hear some very creative selections.
However, I also like the hula hoop idea! You could tell guests that you’ll kiss for as long as they can keep the hula hoop going. That would be funny.
And I like the charitable donation concept, too, but I’m already suggesting that our guests donate to charity in lieu of gifts, so that would be overkill for me.
At my sister’s recent wedding, they announced a challenge to replace the glass clinking– they would only kiss if another couple gave a demonstration of a good kiss. It was fun in that it challenged other people to be involved, the newlyweds had to match or beat their kiss, and only a handful of other couples had the guts to do it! Great solution.
Russians have a tradition where they yell “gorkya” which literally translates to “bitter” and you have to kiss to kiss the bitterness away (as in, kiss to keep the bad out of ur marriage). It’s often done at the end of a speech or some event- not just out of the blue. Everyone gets in the spirit and yelling of it so it becomes a huge bonding experience and it pretty much happens throughout your entire life after the wedding - birthday parties etc. So since my fiancé is American, ive begin training him in PDA- as in- yes, my 92yo grandma really does want to see us kiss- she considers it a mitzvah.
I’m mostly with mightywombat here….but the trivia idea might be fun, particularly if it’s Trivia about the two of you. Maybe things like “Where did Mr. and Miss Knitting meet?”
One of the weddings I was at recently had the MC say that if someone wants the bride and groom to kiss, they gota do it first with their own significant other and the bride and groom will follow suit. I guess it really scared people off since in the whole 7 hours of the wedding, only ONE couple did it
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Mrs. Knitting, Toronto Age and Occupation: 24, Student Recruitment Assistant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Neuroscience PhD Candidate Engagement Date: October 2009 Wedding Date: December 2010 Venue: University of Toronto Faculty Club About Me: I'm a pearl wearing, etiquette book reading Toronto girl who loves cooking and baking, museums, charm bracelets, and collecting books on Jackie Kennedy (a lot). I've been known to spend Sunday mornings at the antique market, Wednesday evenings at sister sushi dinners, and any bit of spare time reading. After six and a half years of many late night walks, watching DVDs together in bed, travelling to places like New York, and Tobermory, doing Sudokus together on the couch, lots of Indian food, the occasional yoga class, moving in together and so much more, Mr. Knitting and I are planning a cozy Christmasy (it's a word!), vintage wedding in Toronto complete with many DIY projects (eek!) and lots of help from our amazing group of family and friends.
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