Welcome party
Give Friday night a centerpiece that is not a slideshow
The welcome party is where two families and five friend groups meet for the first time. A live printing station gives everyone the same easy first conversation: “which design did you pick?”
Why Friday beats Saturday for live printing
Saturday belongs to the ceremony and the dance floor; the schedule is tight and emotional. Friday night is loose by design — guests graze, drift, and look for something to do. A press station fills that space perfectly: it runs for three hours, nobody is pulled away from a first dance, and every guest starts the weekend already holding something with your names on it.
What guests actually do
They walk up, pick a design from a menu of two or three, choose tote or tee, and watch the press. The piece comes off warm, gets a fold, and becomes the thing they carry all weekend. With a hat-bar add-on, guests pick a Richardson 112 crown and a monogram patch instead — the standing-with-a-drink version of the same moment.
The crew day
A typical welcome-party build is a 5–6 hour crew day for a 3-hour guest window: 90 minutes of load-in, the live window, and a fast, quiet pack-out. Staffing bills at $250/hr including all of it; local staffed stations start around $5,000.
Pair it with pre-pressed welcome totes so early arrivals are covered before the station even opens.