How did you make the slideshow for your reception?

peaches85

FI and I are thinking of putting one together to show during the reception, but I'm not sure how to go about making it.  For those of you who made one, did you just use powerpoint?  How did you get entire songs to play?

Also, how long should it be?  I don't want guests to be bored and I don't want to cut into dancing time since we're paying for a DJ.  In fact, when would be the best time to show it?  While people are eating?

TIA!

Lola Minnie

our dj did it.. we gave them the photos.

have you asked if they will do that for you?

peaches85

Didn't even think of that!  I'll look into it, but I'm assuming it's probably more money... if that's the case, we'll have to DIY the slideshow.

goaliegirl

Our DJ did it as well....it was part of our package.    We did it just as everyone was sitting down to dinner and it was not that long at all.

jaimelody

I did ours in iMovie. It should be around 5-6 minutes. The shorter the better.

uppereastgirl

You can also do that in PowerPoint Peaches -- I forget how, but if you play around with the background music, you can make it so slides automatically advance but also the song doesn't get interrupted as you go from one slide to the next.

Agree with Jaime -- the shorter the better.  Some guests will think it is cute, some will wish they were able to talk/dance/pee/get another drink during that time and it will be way too long for them no matter how short it is.

tparty10

My DJ is going to do it -- it was part of the package. You could do it yourself in Imovie.

peaches85

Thanks ladies!  Powerpoint might be the best option for me since I don't have a Mac. 

jaimelody - Does iMovie come standard on all Macs?  My sister has one, so maybe I can borrow her laptop or ask her to make one for me.

uppereast - Good point about the length... I definitely agree (if I was a guest I'd probably be like LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED ALREADY!  haha).  Maybe I could have it play DURING the first dance... that way I won't feel like all eyes are on FI and me the entire time and we won't be cutting into the rest of the reception.  And I won't need music, since there will already be music in the background from the first dance.

jaimelody

yup - iMovie is a standard and it's SUPER easy to learn how to do. I can help if you have any questions.

peaches85

Awesome!  Thanks!  :-)

uppereastgirl

Peaches, I was horrified by the first dance too so I like your slideshow then idea (and from a guest's perspective, it is boring to watch even very good friends dance for 3 minutes, so it would give them something to do then).

At a wedding we went to a few years ago, the bride and groom had a slideshow set to repeat at a tv set up by the guestbook table, which was near the bar.  I like that idea too if you don't want to stop things to do your slideshow.  It gave us something to do while waiting to sign the guestbook/get a drink, but we could see it on our own schedule.  I have very bad toasts/slideshow luck generally -- they always seem to come when I just finished a drink or reaaaaaally need to pee.  And by the time everyone is shushed and sent back to their tables, a short slideshow will take up much more than the time it actually runs for.

peaches85

Ohhh... I like the idea of having it at the guest book table!  I know it sounds morbid, but I've seen that at a lot of wakes lately.  And I like the fact that we (or the DJ, which would mean extra $$) won't have to set up a big screen and projector with that option.

Thanks for the idea!