嘉宾 = honored guest. 嘉奖 = commendation. Also common in place names and personal names.
Components
semantic
壴zhù
drum on a stand
壴 sits on top - an old graph picturing a tall ceremonial drum on a stand, with feathered ornaments above. It supplies the festive flavour: drumming at a ritual feast. The whole char is indexed under Kangxi #30 口 by tradition, taken from 加 below. Recognizable inside 鼓 and 喜.
加 at the bottom supplies the sound exactly - same initial, same rime, same tone. The drum on top plus 加 below also reads as a compound ideograph: pile praise upon a celebration, hence the senses excellent, fine, to commend (嘉奖, 嘉宾). Pedagogically a clean phonetic-and-flavour pairing.
Filed under radical 口 (kǒu, #30) by convention. 口 is not a separate component in 嘉, so no strokes are highlighted.
