Tying the Knot: Reception Details

I had 10 months to plan our wedding. 10 months were spent buying ribbon in juuuust the perfect hue of raspberry, agonizing on the dilemma of escort cards v. a seating chart display, and how to bypass the white card box with the tacky tassels that every venue provides. Before I knew it, ten months was gone and there we were standing in our reception hall on our wedding day. It was at that moment that I saw all of my hard work presented before me...and I loved what I saw.

We had two variations of centerpieces. One was reminiscent of the bridesmaids bouquets and featured a small gathered arrangement of plum dahlias and raspberry asters. The taller centerpieces were vases from Ikea filled with four floating candles. The candlelight reflected the light coming from the two beautiful chandeliers in our ballroom, it was perfect. I hand-tied each of the vases with raspberry ribbon and was ecstatic about the results. Plum table runners graced each table and brought our colors into the room.

(for some reason, blogger has distorted the true colors of these pictures. our colors were a rich plum and a bold raspberry.)

I loved our engagement pictures so much that I incorporated them into our table numbers. An engagement picture was mounted to one side of a plum cardstock. The table number, along with a variation of our monogram, was displayed on a piece of white cardstock which was mounted to the other side of the plum cardstock. The guests loved seeing our engagement pictures and wandered around to other tables to see some of our other pictures!

This, was my pride and joy....our Blurb guestbook. Every "left" page had one of (or four of) our engagement pictures. The right side of the book was blank, for guests to sign. The guests loved the concept and we now have a book to put on our coffee table!

I threw out the idea of the traditional card box early in the process. I was going to attempt to make something, but then I saw this beautiful vase at Ikea and I knew it would be a gorgeous holder for our cards. Our bar was adorned with 150 white cocktail napkins, with our monogram in plum, from etsy seller Designs By Tine. It was just another personal touch that brought in our monogram. I loved them. The seating chart was displayed in the hallway leading to the ballroom (right before the guest book). The concept of our monogram flowed through to the designs of the cards. Each card displayed a table number and listed all those seated at each table number. It couldnt have turned out more beautiful. Stay tuned for my posts on lessons learned where I'll share things like...diy tips, where I bought my shoes, lessons I learned and things I wish I knew while planning my wedding! previously in the series "tying the knot": we did it, a preview, our honeymoon, our candy bar, lifesaver, getting ready, our first look, the bride and groom, bouquets and boutonnieres, the shoes, the bridesmaids, the groomsmen, the bridal party, the sock shot, favorites, the ceremony, the bubbles and the get away, rawry, toasts and dancing, the cake all pictures by: nicole green. please link back to tying the knot when posting any of these pictures.

Hand Tying

Monday night was spent watching Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill with the Maid of Honor while painstakingly hand tying raspberry ribbon around our tall centerpiece vases from ikea that will be on every other table at the reception. The hand-tying gives this result, when finished:

Photo by jasmine star as seen at joyful weddings and events
At our reception, each tall vase will be filled with water and contain 5 floating candles.

Our florist will be filling small vases with plum and raspberry dahlias, similar to the bridesmaids bouquets. These small vases will adorn every other table. I'll go over to the florist the week of the wedding to hand tie those vases with raspberry ribbon.

In just a few short weeks, I'll be sharing the professional pictures with all of you of how our centerpieces turned out! I cannot believe it!

The Card Box

Listen. The card box has become my worst enemy.

Originally we wanted to take 3 round hat boxes of different sizes to make a card box that looked like a cake with three tiers (photo example found here without the modge podging). We were going to affix plum fabric to it and it would be perfect. So we thought. When Mommy and I got into thinking about the real construction behind it....we decided it would be near impossible for Kristen, who volunteered to make the box, to do. The fabric would never be tight enough and it would just not look right.

So then we thought about using square boxes instead. But this is a lot of work (and money once all the supplies have been bought!) for 1 little card box that will never be used again! Seeing as how I cannot bear to use the standard white card box offered at the reception, an alternate idea for a card box is needed. So far I have only come up with one alternative.

Would it be ok for me to take a large glass vase and use it for the card box? A large vase with a lot of depth. I would wrap them with ribbon and affix a sign similar to the monogram that will be attached to the centerpieces (see picture of centerpiece vase inspiration here). I would have a friend stand at the gift table to ensure that none of the cards were taken out of the vase. The venue wedding coordinator would take the vase to our room shortly after the cocktail hour ends.

What do we think?

It's almost back to school time and this ring shot reminded me of how excited I would always get to go back to school (and back to school supply shopping). photo by jk photography.

Football Fields of Ribbon

In an effort to explain why I will need 240 yards of ribbon:

Let’s discuss, shall we?!
1. Ribbon streamers I posted about here
2. Roughly one foot of ribbon will be used to bind together each program.
3. The florist stated she needs about 4 yards to wrap the BM bouquets. I rounded up just to be safe.
4. Unsure if we will wrap the GM boutonnieres, but I threw in a foot just for fun.
5. Detail on the invitations to come
6. Please let me explain my vision for the napkins:

(please forgive me, I don't have a credit for this photo. let me know if you know who took this!)

A white napkin folded with a "tuxedo fold" making a little pocket for a card I will (hopefully) soon be designing. I envision it not to be a menu, but more of a card that will detail the events of the reception. More on that later.

7. Each of the 17ish centerpieces will have a thick ribbon wrapped around it with our monogram affixed to the ribbon. (I told you I would be slapping the monogram everywhere…) The small centerpiece vases will be similar to this vase:

hy studio

So. 141+118=259 yards of ribbon. More than 2 football fields. Wish me luck.

Bellissima Vita!

I received a comment from Bellissima Vita Weddings on my previous centerpiece post. Immediately, I followed the link to (her) blog and found more eye candy than I could handle.

I'm totally stealing the following centerpiece idea (below) by substituting in white polo roses, a thick black ribbon around the vase, and using the monogram below that was designed for us by Erin over at Lucky Me!

left: Kevin Beasley Photographyvia BV Weddings

right: monogram by e lucky designs

Some of my favorite posts are (her) "Cool Things Wednesday" posts featuring everything from ideas for bridesmaids gifts to sweet place card holders to ideas for DIY centerpieces. Two of my favorites include the pedestal candy jars for a cookie buffet and the tealight candle holders :



So if you haven't checked out BV weddings yet, you should!

The Florist

Tomorrow, I am going to be meeting with two florists.
Each of them asked for me to bring in pictures of what I want the floral arrangements for my wedding to look like. Problem. I have no idea. I mean, I have THOUGHT about it...but I am not even close to deciding. So. here are my thoughts:


My bouquet: I'm leaning towards an white, not too leafy, hand tied with ribbon, and very simple bouquet. Faye & Greer posted this board a while ago and I love them all:

{Clockwise: ranunculus bouquet from The Knot, anemone bouquet from Artfool, peony bouquet by Artfool via The Knot, hydrangea & rose bouquet from The Knot}

Ceremony info: Chris would like the BM's to carry some sort of plum/raspberry arrangement and have the GM's wear plum vests. Boutonnieres are still up in the air. BM's will still be wearing black dresses and obviously the GM's will be wearing black suits.

Reception info: I'm steering away from the "branchy" centerpiece idea. I would like to have half of the tables featuring a small simple arrangement of one of the above white flowers. I'm now thinking that the other half of the tables will have some sort of tall vase with floating candles to compliment the light the two massive (at least 10'x6' long) chandeliers will be giving off.

Help! Do you have any pictures of white bouquets like the ones that I have described above? Better yet, do you have any pictures/links to a plum/raspberry BM bouquet or GM boutonniere? And I'm sure that I will have to play around with the centerpiece ideas, but any other thoughts on the candlelight centerpieces?! Send any links and info my way! I have added a section on my blog page with a link to where you can send me your e-mails! Thanks so much!!

Twiggy

This weekend my parents and I were reception hall shopping and actually came across a centerpiece idea we all loved! Three tall cases of alternating sizes were stuffed loosely with branches and a large white hydrangea sat propped up on the very bottom of the vase, amidst the twigs.

The arrangement was simple, affordable, and would add height to the tables at the reception hall. I would like to place the tall twig centerpieces at every other table and place a smaller and shorter gathering of hydrangeas at the other tables.

I found this picture on The Knot that captures some of what I am envisioning.

I would love to wrap/tie a thick plum ribbon around at least 1/2 of the vase.

And then I found this picture on The Knot and I would decorate the church like this in a heartbeat if I was going for a winter wonderland or fairytale themed wedding. The last thing that I need to do is think about changing my theme...again...

Are any of you doing anything twiggy or have some twiggy inspiration to share?!