Pub Quiz and Pre Wedding Parties
Back in 2018 I attended Effi and Sammy’s wedding and they had a quiz in the middle of it and I enjoyed it that much, from that moment on, I knew it would be a part of our wedding - no exceptions. I originally wanted to have it in the middle of the party but when I realised the 6 nations would be on and we’d be showing that, I soon realised we were pushed for time. And thus, I quickly decided we’d host a pub quiz the night before the wedding party and it was the best idea I could have had.
Having 40+ guests staying on site at the venue, a welcome party of sorts was a no brainer. Everyone was arriving throughout the Friday, it made sense to lay on food for people and seen as we’d got married that morning, people wanted to see us, so I set about creating a pub quiz for an army of friends and family.
My family are notoriously good at pub quizzes and given the occasion, I wanted to avoid any one team having an advantage so I made the quiz myself - all about us. There were three rounds, one round of 15 multiple choice questions, one picture round and another 15 multiple choice Q’s. There were questions friends were more likely to know, questions about university, questions only family would remember and a trick question and a bonus to boot. There was even a tie breaker we didn’t get to (it was, how many days have we been together today and the answers was in the 3 thousands), the idea was all about common sense, a few funny stories and the chance to get to know us a bit better if you knew one of us really well and had never met the either.
We hosted our pub quiz in the main barn at Rosedew Farm where we were holding the party the next day and had 8 teams of friends and family with us. The venue is all DIY and having ‘the big event’ meant I wanted as little fuss as possible the night before, so I didn’t have as much to clear up! My Mum had already decorated the bannisters with foliage from her garden and her and Jos strung waterproof, battery powered fairy lights (£8.79 on Amazon, we needed three and they were tightly wrapped) on the staircase outside to light the way for everyone. I decorated the dresser in the bar as much as I could without giving away the secrets of the Saturday and chucked some of my succulents and cacti from my house on there along with a print of our names my friend bought me when we got engaged (similar here).
Our venue has tables and chairs to hire so we nabbed some of them and a few highchairs for the tiniest quiz teams and chucked some plastic disposable tablecloths from poundland (similar here) on top, along with a Vale Cider business card and bottle opener and a couple of biros. We had a whole host of cider on tap which went down quickly and our caterers, Farmers Pantry laid on fish and chips in trays which were the biggest portions and SO good from the few nervy mouthfuls I ate, plus gluten free and vegan replacements for the fish so everyone had something good to eat.
Jos was drunken quiz master and had everyone in stitches with his embellishments of answers, my jaw and belly were aching by the end from laughing and from begging him to please just get on with it. I stuck to being in charge of the scoreboard, using one of our business A boards with my trusty chalk pen (uniball are by far the best I found) and my Dad on standby when I couldn’t do the maths. We had 8 fabulous teams but there could only be one winner - a winner I had expected all along tbh. My Mum, Dad, brother and sister in law smashed it out the park, knowing lots of answers, being part of lots of memories and just plain guess work on the ones they didn’t know and they made off home with their prizes at the end of the night. Vale Cider sponsored the quiz and they were thrilled to pieces with their hamper of cheese, crackers, welsh cakes, cider, apple juice, mulled cider, bottle openers, postcards and apple shaped post it notes - plus their mini trophies which my niece has now nabbed.
The best weddings I have been to have had some sort of evening before kind of party, it allows the guests to have the chance to catch up, to see you, to see each other, mingle and get to know each other before the wedding itself. It really allows all the focus to be on what you want it to be on the day, not a load of snatched conversations of people who haven’t seen each other for months and personally, it allowed me and Jos the chance to make sure we got round everyone over two nights, not one rushed mingling job. Oh, and a pub quiz comes highly recommend as a good icebreaker.
