The reception line is a time-honored wedding tradition that is regaining favor among today's brides and grooms. It provides you the opportunity to really see each and every person who was kind enough and excited enough to come to your wedding, witness your wedding ceremony and wedding vows and celebrate your very good fortune with you.

You want to be able to celebrate with your community. But given the threat of flu this year, it might be better not to risk passing the flu among all your guests.

Your best bet is relying on two ways to court your guests.

1. Do warm toasts to your guests. Grab the seating chart and greet everyone who's there. Take a long time, linger over the people in your life. Announce why you've seated people together.
2. Do the rounds of the tables. Do not shake hands and kiss everyone. Tell each guest how grateful you are that they are here and how important they are in your life. Be warm and wonderful and very focused on them to make up for not hugging them.

You can use either your program or your DJ to announce why you won't be kissing every cheek and shaking every hand. Make the announcement as if it is for their benefit not yours. Because it is for their benefit. You do not want your wedding to be known as the wedding where everyone got the swine flu. You want as always to be particularly careful of the babies and the elderly, although the elderly are the first in line to get the vaccinations.

It's not a bad idea to wear gloves, because you're the people who will be moving from table to table. Lock arms or hold hands as if you can't let go of one another. People will certainly understand that!

Make sure that you carry hand sanitizer with you and that you have hand sanitizers on the table so that if you are shaking hands you get yours cleaned off before you shake the next set of paws. This is your best man and woman's new most important wedding support task!

If you take just a few precautions, you can make your wedding memories memorable for all the right reasons... and everyone will be grateful to you for your thoughtfulness. That will make this a relationship that everyone will want to support for the rest of your happy and healthy ever after marriage! (and if all else fails, try the fist bump!)