What does a wedding emcee actually do?

A wedding emcee is essentially the host of a wedding reception. As with any host, a wedding emcee is responsible for making both the couple and their guests feel comfortable and ultimately enjoy themselves. But pulling this off requires more than just being able to keep a smile on stage and a keen sense of humour!

As a professional wedding emcee, here’s a list of things I actually do, from the weeks or months leading up to the wedding to the wedding day itself.

1. Understand you and your fiancé or fiancée well

Many people have likened choosing a wedding emcee to choosing a partner - and they’re not wrong. The hallmark of an ideal wedding emcee, at least for your wedding, is an unmistakable feeling of chemistry. After all, your wedding emcee will not be able to fully immerse himself or herself in the emotions of your wedding if he or she doesn’t know you and your fiancé or fiancée well enough.

This means it’s important for your wedding emcee to establish a rapport with you beforehand. I enjoy meeting the couples who have engaged me over dinner, which always seems to create the perfect mood for sharing stories! My favourite is the story of how each couple met and got together. Occasionally, I still get surprised despite having been a wedding emcee for over 10 years.

2. Lead the execution of your wedding programme

Over dinner, I’ll also try to get an overview of a couple’s wedding programme. The latter helps me identify the key segments - such as the two march-ins, the toasting ceremony and yum seng, along with any activity or game - that I’ll guide guests through.

Learn more: Plan your wedding programme with me

Although an experienced wedding emcee would be familiar with the typical flow of a wedding programme in Singapore and able to transition between different segments smoothly, he or she should always be ready to call upon suitable anecdotes (which is why he or she needs to understand you and your fiancé or fiancée well) or jokes to fill the time if, for example, someone is late or there’s a technical glitch.

3. Perform a technical check before your wedding

Speaking of a technical glitch, I always find it a good idea to arrive at least 30 minutes before a wedding. This gives me enough time to connect my laptop and my microphone to the AV setup at the wedding venue and perform a final technical check.

Although the wedding venue is responsible for supplying the required pieces of AV equipment and ensuring that they work as intended, a wedding emcee should strive to reduce the chances of a malfunction. After all, it takes a collective effort to pull off a successful wedding.

4. Facilitate wedding festivities

Needless to say, a wedding emcee has to be adept at managing various aspects of a wedding. This can entail making timely announcements, directing the movements of VIPs, ensuring that the glasses of guests are filled before the toasting ceremony begins and helping the photographer or videographer to line guests up for ‘money shots’.

5. Clarify VIPs’ names

At the top of the list of the don’ts of a wedding emcee is mispronouncing the name of a VIP or not addressing a VIP with his or her preferred name. As basic as it sounds, the names of VIPs are one of the first details a wedding emcee should discuss with his or her couple to avoid any confusion on the wedding day!

6. Keep guests’ energy levels high

If your wedding guest list consists of more than a few dozen people, it’s likely that several guests would be sharing tables with people they are meeting for just the first time. A wedding emcee must be able to read the room and watch for guests who are looking at their phones or becoming restless.

To tackle this situation, I get guests to stand up to participate not only in the most important segments but also in spur-of-the-moment giveaways. For example, I’d encourage couples to purchase a few vouchers, which can be used as prizes for their guests. I haven’t seen any guest not getting excited about winning something!

Hire an experienced wedding emcee

With your wedding being such a treasured moment, the last thing you want is to worry about whether your wedding emcee will get all the details right and execute them to perfection.

As a wedding emcee with over 10 years of experience, I have seen my fair share of weddings. From smaller, intimate occasions to large-scale celebrations, each wedding is innately unique to a couple. I’m always on hand to learn more about your requirements and see your wedding programme through smoothly - all while engaging your guests and creating fun, cherished memories for you to keep.