How to entertain our guests?

Yes, I know we're throwing a great big rocking party for our wedding guests and that should be enough. However, with a 6:30pm ceremony, our out of town guests, even those that arrive Saturday morning, will have a decent amount of time to spare. What ever will they do to keep busy?

To help our guests use their free time wisely, Mr. Turkey and I spent time this weekend creating a section on our wedding website entitled "What to do in Philly". We took this pretty seriously, as we always enjoy exploring when at an out of town wedding and haven't always found a lot of help prior to our trips.

Visiting the Parthenon (Nashville)

Some couples' wedding websites gave us a generic website for information (e.g. a site like visitphilly.com) while others went unattended with a "coming soon" up until the big day. With the former, you can often use these sites as a great resource for browsing, but we've found it's most helpful (and efficient) when you receive feedback from the couple themselves on where you should go!

Can you find us in the bean? (Chicago)

Out of town bags are a great way to get information to guests (love the maps and tourist brochures), but unfortunately it sometimes comes too late, especially when you arrive prior to hotel check-in and have time to wander.

I realize the Turkeys may be the exception, as some people fly in and out, but since we've attended so many weddings, we often tried to take advantage of our time away and put those days off to use. We've had some wonderful experiences when we have information prior to our trip, specifically when we're able to use the bride and groom's suggestions on where to eat and explore.

At Marginal Way in Ogunquit, Maine (on our way to Portland)

The photo above is just one of many from a fabulous experience we had in the fall of 2010 at a wedding in Maine. The couple had extensive information on their website and also provided several emails with restaurant and activity recommendations. We were not at all familiar with Portland, but with this information were able to jam-pack our visit.

Now that you have some background on our experiences, I'll share what we put together.

First, as I mentioned, there is a section of our website dedicated to what to do in Philadelphia.

A snapshot of the "What to do in Philly" section of our site (couldn't get the whole thing, so cut out intro)

For the restaurant recommendations and tourist activities, you can see there are downloadable files which feature some of our suggestions. We also listed websites if guests were looking to browse on their own. This section of our site didn't take too long to do, but the files...well, they took a while.

We decided to highlight our "Top 10" items for the tourist activities and restaurants. Doesn't seem like a ton of work on the surface, but when you enter important information (website, location, hours) and some thoughts on each, you find yourself up against sundown on a Sunday afternoon!

The worst part was that we originally added photos to accompany each suggestion and then found that the file was too big to put on our website!

A snapshot of the tourist attraction doc...with photos that were eventually removed for the site version

Here's where we need your help, Hive. We have these "Top 10" docs (sans photos) on the website, but as of now, they're not scheduled to make another appearance. Should they?

We are doing out of town (OOT) bags and planning to, alongside snacks and water, include some Philadelphia tourist brochures / maps (and a hand-drawn map - more to come on that). Will those suffice for guests looking to explore the city?

Again, we realize that we may be the exception in preferring to have information prior to our trip and are hoping you can tell us what you think would be most helpful if you were one of our visiting guests!

A) These "Top 10" docs are just fine on your website - stick to tourist brochures / maps in the OOT bags
B) Put copies of the "Top 10" docs in your OOT bags + tourist brochures / maps
C) Do B, but make sure to use the version of the "Top 10" docs with photos
D) You don't need the tourist brochures / maps; just include the "Top 10" docs
E) Other - hit the comments!

Did anyone else spend a lot of time worrying about how to entertain their guests outside the wedding festivities?

Note: if you have any interest in seeing our documents, please send me a PM and I'll send you a copy!