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Wedding newspaper crossword and games: how to make them

Puzzles are the page guests spend longest on, and the best way to get two families talking across a table. Here is how to write a crossword about the two of you, plus eight other games that take an hour to make.

By Chris, The Wedding Newspaper

How to make a wedding crossword

  1. List 10 to 14 answers. Use places, pets, names, jobs, in-jokes, the honeymoon destination and the pudding. Mix lengths from four to twelve letters.
  2. Draw a 13 by 13 grid. Squared paper is fine. Put your longest answer across the middle.
  3. Cross the next longest through it, then keep adding words wherever they share a letter. Leave an empty square between words that run side by side.
  4. Black out every unused square.
  5. Number the first square of each word, left to right and top to bottom. A square that starts both an across and a down word gets one number.
  6. Write the clues under Across and Down, with the number of letters in brackets.
  7. Test it on a friend who knows you less well, and put the solution on the back page.

Free crossword makers online will arrange the words for you if you would sooner not do it by hand. Export the grid as an image and place it on the page.

Writing clues both families can solve

The groom's uncle does not know where the bride went to university. Write clues that someone could answer by reading the rest of the paper or by asking their table. That turns the crossword into a reason to read every page and talk to the people opposite.

  • Where the proposal finally happened (3,4)
  • The dog who thinks he is in charge (7)
  • City where the bride and groom met (9)
  • Maid of honour (5)
  • What the groom cooked on the third date (7)
  • Today's pudding (6,6)
  • First holiday together (6)
  • The groom's football team, sadly (10)

Write one or two easy clues so that everyone gets started, and one that only the best man can answer.

Eight more games

Who said it?

List eight things one of you always says, with a tick box for each of you. "I don't need the sat nav." "We are not getting a dog."

Bride or groom?

Who is the better driver? Who takes longer to get ready? Who said "I love you" first? Guests vote, and you can reveal the answers in a speech.

Spot the guest

Find someone who has known the bride for more than twenty years, has travelled furthest, or was there the night you met. This gets people out of their seats.

Wordsearch

Good for children and quick to make. Hide 12 to 15 words from the day.

Guess the baby photograph

Print childhood pictures of the wedding party with numbers, and the answers on the back page.

The wedding quiz

Ten questions about the two of you, one round per table, with a bottle for the winners.

Spot the difference

Two copies of one photograph, with five small things removed from the second.

Advice column

Leave blank lines under "Our advice for a long marriage" and ask guests to tear the page out and post it in a box. Put this on a page with nothing important on the other side.

Where puzzles go

Page 7 of an eight-page paper, opposite the back page, is the traditional place. Put pens on the tables. Print solutions upside down or on the back page, in small type.

More ideas for the other pages are in what to put in a wedding newspaper.

Would you prefer someone else wrote it?

I interview you both, write and design the whole paper and have it printed and delivered. See how it works and the prices. If you are making your own, the template pack gives you eight laid-out pages to start from.