Ushers can play a crucial role when it comes to guest experience. They’re usually the first person your guests interact with at your wedding. Talk about first impressions! Some couples ask their groomsmen to double up and also be ushers while others choose an entirely new group of guys to step up. Either way, we recommend having 1 usher to every 50 guests in attendance to help things run smoothly.
Why is this role so important?, you might be asking. Guests can surely figure out how to sit on their own. Well, you’re right. They definitely are able. But that doesn’t mean they do it! Weddings without ushers often end up with a group of guests congregating in the back. They’d rather chat with the parents of the Bride or Groom. And who wants to be the first to sit? We’ll answer that for you. It’s no one. 🤦🏼♀️
It’s not quite enough to simply assign ushers, though. We have found that ushers often need a little bit of coaching. Built into all of our timelines, we have an “usher meeting” about 45 minutes prior to the ceremony where we tell them all the do’s and don’ts of ushering. We explain it’s up to them to encourage guests to take their seats. Don’t wait for a guest to approach you. They won’t do that. Instead, try inviting guests to have a seat. We also let them know the manner in which they talk to guests matters! This is a big one. We tell them exactly how to talk to the guests so they come across as warm and inviting. We round out the pep talk by defining the Bride’s Side and Groom’s Side terms. We rarely see couples choose to do this, however many of the guests over the age of 40 will sometimes tell the ushers which side they prefer to sit on. There’s nothing worse than an usher looking at your Aunt Jane dumb-founded because he doesn’t know where the “Bride’s side” is.
Last thing that’s super important: It’s a big pet peeve of ours to see ushers seat someone and then turn around and come back up the center aisle - usually getting in the way of another guest who is being seated by another usher. We always tell them the number one cardinal rule is to return to the back up a side aisle.