Photo: Lionel Tan

Weddings Forgotten Hero

The 3rd Most Important Person – Your MC

A great MC can make or break your wedding. He/she’s the one who does the announcements, organises the flow of the day in conjunction with the venue host and celebrant, and shields the happy couple from having to deal with any minor glitches or changes.

The MC is so crucial, in fact, that we think of them as the third most important person at the wedding. So, as in many things, it’s best to have a good one. Here are our six tips for selecting and preparing your MC: 

1. It’s Not Just An Honorary Position – No matter how funny, charming or good-looking your prospective MC might be, if they don’t cut it in the skills area they aren’t the person for the task. And what’s more, they won’t thank you for picking them just because you think you should.

2. Get A Professional If You Can – Having seen professional MCs at work, we guarantee they’ll make your wedding run smoothly and lower your stress significantly. If things go wrong on the day, it’s almost always because of a breakdown in communication between the couple and the venue or because the wedding party loses track of time. A pro knows all the pitfalls and will keep you on track and having fun.

3. They Need To Be Organised – A good MC is able to keep their eye on the time, read the crowd and be across every detail of the wedding, photography and reception. That requires organisational skills. They don’t have to have OCD (in fact, that’s not good), but a healthy regard for timetables and processes is a huge asset.

4. Gift Of The Gab – Quite a bit of the MC’s job is to make announcements. That means they need to have a clear and strong speaking voice and know how to talk off the cuff. Clinging to notes, which invariably get lost, dropped or out of order, can lead to minor disasters. If your MC is quick with a (funny) joke, so much the better. Knowing how to use a microphone is also an advantage.

5. Make Sure They’re Properly Briefed – The most organised MC who’s a trained public speaker, still won’t be effective if they don’t know what’s supposed to be happening and when. That’s easily avoided though, by making sure they have a run sheet provided by the venue, and have at least a basic knowledge of the venue layout, food service and so on. That means working out the details before the big day. They’ll be overwhelmed if they have to get to grips with all of that an hour before the wedding. If possible, get them to the rehearsal where a lot of the familiarisation can happen and questions can be answered.

6. Have A (Good) Backup – It’s the morning of, and your MC calls in sick. What do you do? It’s probably impractical to have an understudy who prepares alongside your main person, but you should at least have someone who knows they might be called upon and knows what that means. If they’ve already got a copy of the run sheet – legend.

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