Our wedding was fairly small--about 60 guests. We had a sit-down meal, but no dancing or other entertainment other than a few speeches, and a lot of mingling. So, this may not work for everyone.
We had flower arrangements on each table. My florist suggested that we could save money by borrowing the vases, that is, giving her a refundable deposit for them. She also made one terrific suggestion. So we could give the arrangements to the guests, she recommended that we provide plastic bags. We hid a box of bags behind a table near the entrance doors. A coulpe of relatives agreed to mention the take-home flowers to the guests during the evening, and then stationed themselves near the door when it was over, to intercept the guests and trade them bags for the vases. One relative agreed to put all the vases in his car & return them for us. The bags were also useful for unloading--I mean providing--the uneaten portion of the very tasty cake to those who wanted another piece to take home.
I also went all spreadsheet-y. My one for the guests included columns for gifts--description, date received, date the thank you was mailed. My original intent was so I wouldn't forget to thank someone, but it came in handy when someone who hadn't gotten a thank you note made one of those tactful inquiries about "did you get my gift?" No, it hadn't been received,and the person the took steps to get a replacement.
I am not sure how this would work for a huge wedding, but we set aside blocks of time several days a week to deal with gifts. Open gift, talk about it a bit, enter it on the spreadsheet, get out a card, write note, put in addressed and stamped envelope. We could only open the next gift when the thank you was recorded and written. That prevented a lot of worry that somehow we'd overlooked a gift or a thank you.
We also knew ahead of time exactly which children would be attending. Everyone who was old enough to read got their own personal invitation, in the formal manner with the actual invitation in a separate envelope inside the mailing envelope. They were thrilled.