Fabulous Overhead Wedding Décor

Sometimes you just need that something to draw your guest attention and make your whole reception or ceremony design POP. Look up.
You know I am a fan of inexpensive paper lanterns to add color and style to a décor; but they aren’t the only thing you can use to draw the eye up.

Here they used paper parasols hung in almost sculptural way to form a backdrop for the wedding cake.Paper parasols used as hanging backdrop for wedding cake

Here lighted ‘snowballs’ were hung in the trees. These you can find at the after Christmas sales on clearance. Anytime you are using electrical, I really recommend that you have a licensed event lighting specialist do the install.Lighted snowball decor. Jason Tucker Photography

Flowers always work. Here a chuppah is hug with strung flower heads. If you did these in silk you could have them done well in advance.Flowers being strung for a chuppah

If you want to go for the all out drama, have your ceiling draped and hang amazing crystal chandeliers from the peak. This is a pretty darn elegant look for a tent, don’t ya’ think?Dramatic tent decor for wedding reception

The take away is: Who cares if the carpet sucks, give them a reason to never even look at it! hehe

Putting Together a Shabby Chic Table

I had a great time today. Friend of the Dish, Vicki Sanders of Branching Out Event Florists and I had lunch and a tour with Kristen Fridrich and Mark Ermshar at Classic Party Rentals. Well you know that there is nowhere I like better to find inspiration than a really top notch rental resource. Classic didn’t disappoint.
As we toured the show room I was telling Kristen that shabby chic is a rising trend. Well sure enough, you get that many creative minds together and magic happens. Before you know it we had pulled together a shabby chic place setting and centerpiece out of seemingly thin air.Shabby Chic Table

Let me dissects it for you.

china for shabby chic look

First this beautifully patterned china caught my eye; on the same rack we found the white china with the embossed vines and the scalloped edge. So we mixed and matched. Kristen pointed out the cut glass wine glasses saying it looked like something her grandmother would use. Bingo. We added the blue water goblet for a pop of color. The gold flatware was chosen to pick up the gold rim on the china. Next I ran around the showroom grabbing random bits of silver and hobnail glass and Vicki headed for her car for some flowers left over from Saturday’s wedding. Before you knew it, we had a shabby chic look using all rented objects.
Now wasn’t that easy?

I’ll have more fun tidbits from today to come.

DIY Centerpieces: Paper Lanterns

I was so inspired by this image that I went looking for the bits and bobs to put it together. The more I looked, the more inspired I got.
Easy DIY Centerpiece using paper lanterns(Source)
I love the idea of Chinese paper lanterns but you can’t always hang them at your location. Here they are used as the centerpiece.

multicolored paper lanterns for wedding centerpieceSince paper lanterns are available in a huge range of colors, sizes, shapes and patterns you could go almost anywhere with these.

Just a couple of notes here. Since they are paper, be careful with any candles you use. For the lanterns themselves, I suggest you use battery operated LED lights. You might even want to use the battery operated candles.

You also want to weight the lanterns with a few river rocks. Those puppies are pretty light and you don’t want you centerpieces to blow away.Tucking any leftover river rocks around the finished arrangement will add a Zen quality to your tablescape.
Blue paper lanterns
I was also thinking that adding an accent might be nice. You could tuck lily blooms or orchids in around the lanterns. Or maybe even thesedragonfly lights

I found just about everything you would need at Luna Bazaar. I have a set of the Dragonfly string lights; I picked them up at Target on clearance.

Escort Cards

Escort cards are a necessary evil if you are having a sit down dinner or brunch reception. How boring is it to just set them out on a table. They take up an absurd amount of space that is left empty as soon as the seating begins leaving you with a big ‘design hole’ in your beautifully laid out décor. ~Sigh~

Boring

Instead, why not have a bit of fun with them and use them as a major design element.Birch Log Escort Cards  Michelle Rago

Michelle Rago

Beach theme Escort Cards  Gray PhotographyGray Photography, Courtesy of TWESA.com


Michelle Rago Seashell escort cardsMichelle Rago, from her blog

Bluebird Escort Cards

Courtesy, Snippets & Ink

Chalkboard Seating Chart

An industry insider aside…


If you are having escort cards, please have them arranged alphabetically for your planner. I have seen way too many planners get them on the day of the wedding in a great jumbled lump. They then have to take at least an hour at the last minute to sort them all out; taking valuable time away from getting the rest of your reception details in perfect place. At the very least, if you must, get them to your planner well in advance so they can get them sorted out before the last minute. I’m talking like a week here folks; if you think you are busy the week before your wedding just imagine how busy they are. Or you could forget the whole thing and just make a seating chart!

Just sayin’…

Courtesy, Snippets & Ink>>>>>

DIY Candle Centerpieces: What You Need to Know

As I ran through the stats for the Dish I see that some of the most popular posts have been on DYI Centerpieces and Candle Centerpieces. I thought it might be helpful to do a Need to Know column on candle centerpieces for all my crafty DIY brides.

•    Use masses of candles, not just one or two
•    Use heat resistant containers. If you are not sure, do a mock up and leave them burning for 4 – 5 hours. You don’t want them shattering from the heat at your wedding.
•    Use a charger or tray under your arrangement. If you aren’t using containers be sure to set something under your candles. Rental companies have a hissy fit (rightly so) when you return their linens with candle wax all over them. In fact, most will charge you to replace the linen or remove the wax.
•    Bring lots of helpers. All that glass gets heavy and is time consuming to set up, especially if you are filling them with water.
•    Add bright shiny accents. This is what is going to reflect the candle light and multiply the effect.
•    Remember not to throw away your packing. All that glass will have to be repacked at the end of the night and taken home.
•    Vary the heights and widths.
•    Stick to all one color and one accent color. The look comes from the flame and the shiny touches.
•    If you are going to surround them with rose petals or something similar, don’t underestimate how much you will need. You want a massed effect.
•    Be aware of the drafts in your room. You never know. If you think I am kidding, check out this post from a while back. In retrospect it was pretty funny.

Candles are a beautiful addition to a wedding. They add a warm ambiance and everyone look so much more fabulous in candlelight, don’t ya think?

Shabby Chic: Getting the Look for Your Wedding

I am seeing a resurgence of the shabby chic look for weddings and also a heck of a lot of stuff just being called shabby chic. If you really want that look for your wedding, you first have to understand what is and is not shabby chic.

To me, shabby chic is the look of a vintage English country manor.  A setting full of beautiful stately bits that have been collected over generations and washed by time and use to a lovely softness. There is a randomness that can’t be endlessly repeated on each table.
Unlike the sharp crisp lines we have been seeing in the contemporary looks, shabby chic has a soft, cozy wiltedness to it. There aren’t any sharp color contrasts, just lovely pastel blendings. The silver is old odds and ends with tarnish still lodged deep in the crevices. All the pieces are high quality but worn.

Shabby chic isn’t about a collection of brand new mason jars with daisies shoved in them. That’s country and a design style in its own right, but not shabby chic. Rather, think along the lines of random teapots, sugar bowls , water glasses and flea market vases to hold garden variety flowers for your centerpieces. For flowers think peonies, garden roses, ranunculus and Queen Anne’s lace with wisps of ivy trailing out. Think randomly.

Take a look at some of the images I gathered. See if you can see the thread I am trying to explain.

Here all the chandeliers are different, so are the containers for the flowers

These lovely vintage perfume bottles hold simple garden flowers, the blue plate behind them is a very soft shade of robins egg.

This bouquet is loose, casual and airy. Again the colors are muted.

Bridal Bouquet with pink and white peonies and garden roses

This sign is weathered and old looking but the the font is wonderfully ornate. It looks as if it could have hung outside a paris shop 100 years ago.

How to Find the Perfect Color Palette for Your Wedding

Why on Perfect Palette of course. Just found this lovely blog thanks to Follow Friday on Twitter.

I love colors and color combinations. I also know that it is one of the things that brides will design their entire wedding weekend around* so they have a hard time deciding.

What I love about Perfect Palette is that you can search for inspiration boards by color. For instance, pick Light Pink and you will get 27 different color combinations with light pink, each with their own inspiration board.

This is the one that caught my eye.

*(Not the best idea, how about ”Feeling you want to evoke”)

Effective Event Lighting

One of the most powerful ways to change the look of a room or create ambience for your wedding is with the effective use of lighting.
You can use lighting to wash the walls with color or project a pattern. You can use up light to define a space or use pin spots to highlight your centerpieces and cake. Then of course the use of a monogrammed gobo on the dance floor is always beautiful.

Soft Pink Lit Walls

Soft Pink Lit Walls

Pin Spots Light up A Garden Wedding

Pin Spots Light up A Garden Wedding

Patterns Wash the Walls. Pin Spot on Cake

Patterns Wash the Walls. Pin Spot on Cake

You can expect custom lighting to cost in the neighborhood of 5 to 10% of your budget. That may seem like a lot but there aren’t many other things that will give the power to transform a space the way great lighting can.
Click through the images to see the sources.

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