Cornish business launches new Covid secure wedding entertainment to connect wedding guests and absent friends

With love in the air around Valentine’s Day a Cornish family business has launched a new type of wedding entertainment that can be enjoyed by guests at a wedding as well as absent friends and relatives.

Truro-based CherryTop Weddings has developed an interactive guest experience that meets Covid-19 safety rules and can also be enjoyed at bigger weddings when the regulations allow them to take place again.

CherryTop Weddings has been developed by the family team behind Treasure Trails, a leisure business also based in Truro, specialising in family entertainment.

“The original idea for CherryTop Weddings came from my brother’s wedding, where we created interactive booklets for guests with photographs, anecdotes and activities. The guests at his wedding absolutely loved it, with two engaged couples immediately asking if we could do the same for them,” explains head of marketing Alex Ridd.

Guests attending the wedding in person or virtually will each receive their own printed booklet – ‘A Love Story’, personalised by the couple. It will contain photographs of the couple and fun activities selected by them, which include a range of couples quizzes, puzzles, codebreaking challenges, wedding speech bingo, drawing games and more.

Couples design their own Love Story booklet using CherryTop Weddings’ bespoke, easy-to-use content management system. Special children’s activity packs with accompanying colouring pencils are also available.

The bespoke content management system has been developed in conjunction with Newquay-based technology company Flowmoco. CherryTop Weddings was especially keen to work with a local software developer throughout the technology development of the business.

Guests will be able to upload their responses to the activities, photographs of the day and their messages and good wishes for the couple to an online interactive ‘Wedding Wall’.

The Wedding Wall will also contain an area for absent friends to watch a live stream of the wedding. "The technology allows guests who are attending the wedding virtually to feel as involved and included as in-person guests, by taking part in the same activities as well as by contributing their own content in real-time," says Alex Ridd.

Coronavirus safety regulations look set to impact weddings until Summer 2021 at least, with numbers capped and guests not allowed to share items or mingle between family bubbles. This has made incorporating wedding day entertainment very challenging.

CherryTop Weddings has achieved ‘We’re good to go’ status, the official mark to signal that a tourism and hospitality business has met the Government’s Covid-19 guidelines.

“Although the original idea for CherryTop Weddings came before coronavirus, we are very pleased that our product means that couples getting married during the pandemic can incorporate our new and unique form of entertainment into their day in a covid-secure way,” says Alex Ridd.

“The pandemic has also meant we are all much more used to doing things virtually. Even after coronavirus restrictions are lifted, that trend will continue, with couples looking for ways to involve friends who cannot attend their weddings for health reasons or because they live too far away. We are particularly proud to be offering a product that helps couples share the moments and memories with their families and friends, on their special day.”

There are different packages available to suit each couple’s needs. Packages start from £150. For more information, please visit www.cherrytopweddings.com