So you’ve planned your wedding ceremony perfectly. Every second is accounted for and all the important people you want to honor know their spots in line. You deserve a program to highlight how awesome your wedding is going to be. Plus, guests love knowing what comes next and which second cousin will be singing that wonderful rendition of their favorite song.
For outdoor ceremonies, especially in the warmer months, some programs inadvertently double as another item— fans. But if you know it’s inevitable, why not go with it and surprise your guests with a functional roadmap to your wedding ceremony festivities—that’s right, the wedding program fan.
But this tutorial is no average wedding program fan. It doubles as a game for guests who are bored before the ceremony. I’m sure glad I had these at my wedding because my ceremony started 15 minutes late (and for the record, it wasn’t my fault).
Here’s what you’ll need:
- 144 golfing pencils
- 2 – 100-yd spools of 3/8-inch ribbon
- Cardstock
- Rounded edge die cutter
- 100 butter knife fan handles (or paint sticks will do)
- Glue sticks
- Hot glue gun
- A drill
- Drill the holes in the center of the fan handles. If you’re daring, you can attempt to drill the hole through the pencils as well. However, it is in unnecessary as a hot glue gun can easily and effectively attach the pencils to the ribbon.
- Print your program on 8 ½ “ x 11” cardstock so you can fold in half like a greeting card.
- Use your glue stick to cover the wood stick on both sides. Press down in the middle of one of the folded halves. Spread glue stick all over the rest of the card stock, paying extra attention to the edges. Fold over and press.
- Use the die cutter to round the edges of the fan for an added effect.
- Measure out your ribbon to how far you think it needs to go to play the game at the highest point on the back of your program. Leave extra space to attach the ribbon to the stick and pencil. Thread the ribbon through the handle’s hole and tie a knot.
- Use hot glue to attach the ribbon to the golf pencil to the ribbon.
Note: This works best in an assembling line with multiple hands. It gets done in NO TIME.
When designing your program’s game, try to make it personal. We used a series of questions about ourselves that we knew certain groups of people would know. We hoped it would help get the guests to mingle more. We also had certain letters from each answer be used for a “secret message” to be put at the end which thanked our guests for coming.
Get creative with your programs and have fun with it!
Resources:
- 144 golfing pencils – $8.99 (Staples.com)
- 2 – 100 yd spools of 3/8 inch ribbon – $8 (efavormart.com)
- 100 Butter knife fan handles – $15 (Craftparts.com)
- Die cutter – $8 (Michael’s)
