Reception Reasoning: 3 Safety Hazards To Look Out For When Planning Your Wedding Celebration

It only takes one health and safety incident at a wedding reception to ruin a newly married couple's special day. Many couples fail to consider reception dangers like location maintenance problems, dangerous decorations, open flames and extremely young and elderly guests when making plans. Consider the following:

Fall Hazards

Slip/trips and falls often occur when wedding participants, catering staff, photographers and guests attempt to walk too close to outdoor construction areas or across wet or icy inclined roads and walkways, rough terrain with large rocks or tree roots, cracked pavement or indoor flooring or freshly waxed floors. Poor lighting that makes it difficult for people to see can also, for example, result in them tripping over cables or small children or pets. Personal injury lawyers can help you better understand these and other fall hazards at reception sites.

Fire Hazards

Older improperly maintained venues can have bad electrical wiring that overloads and catches fire. Deteriorating wallpaper and curtains or low-hanging ceiling or wall decorations can ignite easily and transform into a blaze. Other flame risks include smoking products, sparklers and candles. How does a controlled flame cause problems? A smoker might toss a burning match into a trash can or a burning cigarette onto the ground outdoors in dry weather near anything that might burn. Anyone wearing a lot of hairspray or flammable hanging clothing accessories like tassels or lace who leans too close to a burning sparkler or candle on a reception table or around the wedding cake might also catch fire.

Air Hazards

Of course, indoor and outdoor fires caused by burning candles, torches, BBQ coals or cigarettes and cigars generate particles that can cause breathing problems and illness. Another much greater hazard that many couples never consider is indoor dampness, mold and poor indoor ventilation. Dampness and a hot day can cause humidity that exacerbates preexisting asthma or sets off wheezing in the ill and elderly. Mold spores coupled with poor ventilation can lead to allergic reactions, congestion and fatigue that can then result in poor flame management and slips, trips or dizziness and associated falls.

You can't prevent every incident. Sometimes guests start to choke when drinking, eating and laughing or they fail to look where they're while walking and trip and fall. That said, you can reduce the risk by keeping these hazards in mind as you make plans with your partner for your big day.