PULTEVENT
Wedding reception games on screen: 8 moments between dinner and first dance
It's twenty to ten. The main course plates are gone, the band is on a break, and a hundred and twenty guests are doing what wedding guests do in that gap: checking their phones and wondering how long until cake. Then the wall behind the dance floor goes dark and a clip starts. The bride's grandmother, in her garden in Melbourne, holding up a handwritten sign with the couple's names because she doesn't trust the microphone. Nobody is looking at their phone now.
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I've hosted a lot of receptions, and the flat patches are almost never the couple's fault. They happen between the set pieces: after dinner, while the band resets, while the photographer borrows the newlyweds for sunset shots. That's where a screen earns its place. Not instead of the speeches or the dancing, but as something that holds the room together for eight minutes at a time.
PULTEVENT runs from a laptop at the host's table. The projector or the venue TV shows whatever you choose, and guests join from their own phones by scanning a QR code, with no app and no account. Their phones do need internet, so test the Wi-Fi or the mobile signal on the site visit, not on the day.
Below are the eight moments I actually use, roughly in the order they happen, plus the things I leave out on purpose.
8 screen moments for a reception, in timeline order
1 Welcome splash while guests arrive
As people find their tables, the screen shows the couple's names and a photo, or a slow slideshow of the two of them. A blank projector wall becomes something guests take pictures of.
How to run it. Upload two or three good photos the week before and type the names exactly the way the couple writes them. A video splash runs muted, so your own music carries the room.
Guests see at once whose day this is, and you aren't standing in front of a dark wall.
2 Video greetings from people who couldn't come
Short clips from relatives abroad, a best friend on deployment, the grandparent who can't fly anymore. You press play and the clip fills the big screen.
How to run it. Ask the couple for a list of absent people six weeks out and collect clips under a minute each. Three or four is plenty.
It gives the people who are missing a moment in the room. In my experience it gets the biggest reaction of the night, bigger than most speeches.
3 Whose baby photo is this
Baby photos of the couple, both sets of parents and the wedding party appear one by one. The room guesses out loud, then you reveal the name with a separate click.
How to run it. Open with two easy ones. Ask each person before you use their picture; a polite no in May beats a pale face at table six in June.
Each family knows its own baby photos and not the other side's, so the two halves of the room start trading stories.
4 The couple quiz on phones
Eight to ten questions about how they met, who proposed and which one of them burns the toast. Everyone answers on their own phone and the scores land on the screen.
How to run it. Write the questions with the couple and cut any that only three people could answer. There's a whole page on this below in the related links.
Nobody performs, so it's the one game the shy cousin and the great-uncle both play.
5 Quick votes for small awards
The room votes from phones: best-dressed table, who cries first at the speeches, which groomsman hits the dance floor first. The result stays hidden until you close the vote, so nobody just piles onto the leader.
How to run it. Choose anonymous or named voting before you open it. For weddings I keep it anonymous.
It's quick, it's harmless, and it gives you a winner to hand a bottle of something to.
6 Break screens for the photo walk
When the couple slips out for photos, the screen tells everyone, with the time they'll be back. Cake cutting, the bouquet and the last shuttle to the hotel can each get their own screen.
How to run it. Put the timeline into the console the day before as plain lines, like 19:00 Welcome. Custom breaks take any name you type.
Guests stop asking you where the couple went, and the caterers can read the next cue from the kitchen door.
7 Background music from the same laptop
The built-in DJ deck plays your list in order, or picks the next track to suit the flow of the evening, from the same machine that runs the screen.
How to run it. Load a dinner set and a short build-up for the first dance. If the couple has a band, use the deck only for the band's breaks.
One laptop instead of two means fewer cables across the dance floor and no dead air when you switch from a game back to music.
8 Closing credits over the last song
Like the end of a film. Photos change on one side every few seconds while the names roll up on the other: the couple, the parents, the best man, the florist, the aunt who did the seating plan.
How to run it. Write the credits in advance, then add photos from the night while they're running. New shots join the slideshow without disturbing the text.
It's a warm ending that needs no speech, and half the room films it.
About the couple, not about forfeits
Names, photos and stories go on the big screen. The games are about the two people everyone came for.
Played from the seats
A QR code on the wall and a phone in hand. Nobody has to walk to the front unless they want to.
Short slots
Each moment takes five to fifteen minutes and fits into the gaps of an ordinary reception timeline.
One laptop, one pair of hands
What goes on screen, when a vote opens, when the credits roll: it all sits on the host's table.
Where the screen fits in the timeline
My rule is simple: the screen fills gaps, it never competes with the big moments. Nothing goes up during the speeches, the first dance or the first half hour of proper dancing. The good slots are arrival, the stretch after the main course, the photo walk, the minutes before the first dance and the very end.
In practice that's four or five screen moments across an evening, each under fifteen minutes. If you find yourself planning a ninth, you're building a game show, and that's a different party.
What I leave out
No garter games, no dragging people up who didn't agree, no questions about exes. If the couple winces when you describe something, it's gone. The bride's father should never learn about a stag do from a quiz answer.
I also avoid anything that splits the room into winners and losers for too long. A wedding isn't a pub league. A quick scoreboard is fine; a forty-minute tournament isn't.
What you need at the venue
A laptop, an HDMI cable long enough to reach the projector or TV, and sound through the venue system. Most hotels and barns have the screen. Ask what input it takes before the day, not during setup.
Phones need internet for anything guests answer themselves. Old barns and country houses often have one bar of signal and Wi-Fi that dies at eighty users. If that's the case, run the baby photos as a shout-out game from the screen and skip the phone quiz. Everything on the big screen still works from the laptop.
Working with the planner
Send the planner your timeline with the screen moments marked, plus a one-line cue for each: "after dessert is cleared", "when the couple leaves for photos". The kitchen and the photographer care about those cues far more than about what the game is.
One more thing: agree who presses play on the video greetings if you're on the mic. Usually it's you, from the console, but it's worth saying out loud.
Family watching from another country
If grandparents are watching on a video call, share the stage window into the call. They see the same screen as the room, and if they scan the QR from their own phone, they can answer the couple quiz along with everyone else.
I've had a grandmother in Toronto win the quiz from her kitchen. The room cheered for a laptop.
How to try it before the wedding
There's a free 3-day demo with no card: enough time to load the couple's photos, write the quiz and click through the whole evening at home with the TV. After that it's a one-time license, no subscription. Current pricing is on pultevent.ru/en.
Rehearse once with a friend's phone. You'll find the one thing you'd otherwise discover in front of a hundred and twenty people.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to set up wedding screen moments
- 1
Six weeks out, collect video greetings and baby photos, and ask permission for every picture.
- 2
Write the couple quiz with the couple, eight to ten questions, and load it into the quiz builder.
- 3
Enter the timeline and the break screens: photo walk, cake, last shuttle.
- 4
On the site visit, check the screen input, the sound and the phone signal in the room.
- 5
On the day, run the welcome splash at arrival and keep the QR code on screen during dinner.
- 6
Close with the credits over the last song and add the night's photos while they roll.
FAQ
Do guests need to download anything?
What if the venue has bad signal?
Will older guests manage the phone games?
Can the couple see the quiz in advance?
Is the interface in English?
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See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
All audience interactions, a second screen and timing in one app. Guests join by QR — internet is needed for you and for them.
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