Sounds like fun. What age group are we talking. I work in a profession where doing mixers are fun but we seem to find that when we take them out of our group, that people seem to sneak away to the bathroom.

Can you tie balloons to a string and tie them around peoples ankles and they try to step on and the winner is the one left with a balloon. You will have to mark off boundaries. Tell me about your guest and I can come up with some others. For some reason people don't like to do the get to know you games.

What about some trivia about the people that are gathering or just any trivia with prizes. Another idea is to make your own jeopardy game and it could include personal information about the families i.e. who is best known for their chocolate chip cookies? We have done it with a big white board with envelopes taped on to hold the clues or how about your own version of the family feud or your take on a game show. Good luck and have fun.

The best, non intrusive party game I ever saw is the "no" game. Everyone is given 3 string3 of carnival beads, and the party continues. When ever someone says "no" to another, they have to give a string of beads to the person they were talking with. If for some reason someone says no, no, no....they have lost all their beads. At first things are just people talking, but eventually some people get a really lot of beads and people zero in on them trying to win a string from them....and if there is are 3 people talking and one person in the group says no to all...he owes everyone a string of beads.
At the end of the specified time, it should be a long time...easily until after the meal, the one or the ones get a prize....usually a bottle of wine, or champagne or a 6 pack of a nice beer...and prepare for ties and have more than one of the same prize.
It's fun, and doesn't make all conversation stop to play a "game".
Linda C

I like the ideas! The age group for the adults are twenty-something to 50+

It's a huge age spread. I love the Family Feud idea - I will check out the game at the store and see how we can use it to include a large group.

Deanna - how do you do the trivia game? - That sounds fun as well!

I really liked the idea of a kickball (or volleyball, or whatever) game, actually. Mix up the 2 sides of the families on the teams. The people who don't want to play still get assigned to a team; they can be the "fans."

Rent a "quarter miler" loudspeaker and have 2 people who know most of the guests (and who have the personality for it) call the game, making up statistics, etc. as they go ("Now batting for the Jadies: Jane Smith, who leads the Orthodontists' League in overbite correction ... ").

Way back when my husband turned 40, we rented the local minor league baseball stadium (publicly owned, so it was REALLY cheap) and played softball out on the field. There were, like, 40 on each team, but it didn't matter; some just wanted to watch anyway. The "announcers" really helped, because then everyone felt involved even if they weren't playing (and it sneaks in a little get-to-know-you information, too). That loudspeaker only cost $10 to rent in 1995; it can't be too much more now.

Do you think something like Capture the Flag would work for your group and setting? No limit to how many can play that.

I LOVE trivia and "Family Feud" type games (and no risk of rain delay, either), but they take a lot of advance preparation. A personalized version you create yourselves will be a LOT better than a boxed game.

For trivia, you could make up teams of 4-6 people and have them give themselves a name and appoint a captain like you have on the family feud and you can either use a trivial pursuit game (maybe the baby boomers edition-which is probably out of date!!) or maybe just find some questions about different guests i.e. one of our guests was born in a log cabin or one of our guests was the star quarterback for the bulldogs. Maybe before the game, you could pass around index cards with people filling out information or maybe the parents will know things about the family history.Have an official score keeper. Don't drag it out too long.

There is another game called penny ante that everyone gets poker chips or pennies or something similar and you make up cards that say--take turns reading a card i.e.take a penny if you have traveled abroad(from a pot in the middle)
or give a penny to each person who likes taco's. You could have tables of small groups of people as a mixer and maybe award some fun gag prizes. I have the game at work and could look through it for some of the other ideas.

Does anyone play bunco any more. It is a dice game but sometimes hard to explain.

Pictionary is always fun and so is the game "Catch Phrase"

Family Feud could be questions you make up that are all about the wedding, honeymoon, etc.

Let us know if you need more ideas.

I don't know any adults who like those kind of games!