Friends Don't Let Cousins MC Their Wedding
You’re Nearly There
After months of planning, your wedding is just around the corner. You and your beloved have spent time meticulously selecting colors, decor and food. Dresses have been said “yes” to, tuxedos pressed and labeled, and boutonnières are being freshly cut. As you check in the week before the wedding, running down the final checklist again, you realize that you haven’t hired a professional MC for your wedding reception. “No worries,” they say to you, “my cousin is really outgoing - we can ask him to announce a few things on the microphone, it’ll be great!”
It won’t be great.
The Rundown
This is decidedly a mistake. Friends don’t let cousins (or for that matter, your best friend, MOH, witty uncle, etc.) MC their weddings. Let’s discuss a few reasons why:
1. Your Cousin is Not a Professional Master of Ceremonies
Experience MCing, as with all tasks, is what differentiates fumbling novices from confident experts. Your cousin may be the primary storyteller at family parties, but to riff off Mike Tyson, everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face - by a ballroom with 500 loud and hungry wedding guests. Experience tactfully wrangling large crowds, handling a hot microphone and understanding the informal rules of the trade will ensure you don’t put your cousin in a position to fail or dampen the vibe.
2. Your Cousin Should Be Enjoying Your Wedding
While your cousin will inevitably agree to your request to MC, and probably be sincerely excited about it, keep in mind that you’re intentionally keeping that person from sitting back and truly enjoying your wedding reception. Unless of course, you’re asking a cousin who you’re not really close to - in which case, the question is why you invited them in the first place, which is a separate Behind The Lens post altogether. Generally speaking, your cousin, who is not being paid (and likely is paying you) to MC your wedding reception, wants to share in the joy of your union. It’s truly a gift to give each of your guests the opportunity to sit back, relax, not work your wedding, and enjoy witnessing the glory of covenant without having to step out and practice acing your once-in-a-lifetime reception entrance sequence.
3. MCs Are Not Just Program Readers
A common misnomer is that a wedding MC is just a glorified narrator, reading pre-written items off a list the wedding coordinator handed them hours before. If you insist on your cousin doing it, that’s certainly what you will have. You’ll hear the same verbal fillers over and over again. You’ll hear one nervous quip in the beginning about “having the upper hand” and at minimum one excessively awkward inside joke that only “the crew” understands. In reality, experienced MCs are more like the conductors of an orchestra or the grand maestros of your large-scale event. 500 people sitting in a room all have different intentions, demeanors, desires, and expectations for the evening. A skilled MC understands how - like weaving a magnificent human tapestry - to tap into, harness and conduct these intentions into a unified focal point - namely, you and your husband or wife on one of the most important days of your life.
4. You Wouldn’t Gamble On Any Other Wedding Vendor
You’ve spent a significant amount of time and money, however large your wedding is, ensuring your family and guests get to truly immerse themselves into the beauty of your marriage. Every other vendor has been vetted, you’ve had multiple phone calls and email chains, and are expected to deliver quality according to your service contract. However, your guests won’t really care about or remember your floral centerpieces. They will never see the actual pictures your photographers took. They will never know whether your wedding planner was even organized the entire day. However, they will feel every moment of your MC choice. The person you entrust with owning the flow of the entire evening will have an influence on you and your guests’ perception of the evening - especially if they come out guns blazing, screeching microphone in hand, with a impromptu rap about your love story that you’re just now finding out about. You wouldn’t gamble on any other wedding vendor. You deserve an MC spending time with you to understand the vibe you want to set for your wedding, and binding themselves via service contract to deliver what you mutually agreed on.
Invest In The Experience
If you’re currently in the process of planning a wedding, invest in yourselves, your experience and your guests by hiring a professional MC. All-In Productions offers premium MC services for your large-scale events that include a minimum of 2 schedule planning meetings, a mastery of standard MC AV equipment, and most importantly, a combined 20+ years of experience hosting large events within the partnership. All-In Productions also produces custom videos, slideshows and audio mixes to enhance your guests’ experience upon request.
Ensure you and your guests enjoy a seamless experience they won’t soon forget. Reach out to All-In Productions below to inquire about professional MC services. And remember - true friends don’t let cousins MC their weddings.