A Vision Of A Reception
October 23rd, 2007 @ 6:30 pm by Ms. Dahlia
We are looking for roughly 20 centerpieces and two altar arrangements. We are not having personal flowers at all- no bouquets, no boutonnieres, no corsages. Call me crazy, but I just don’t want a bouquet.
We know what we want the church to look like- simple, with minimal decorations. It’s a gorgeous building, and we really want the focus to be on worship.
That said, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what we want the reception to look like. We are thinking of a monochromatic sort of look, and I pulled together the following inspiration board of reception decor.
Things we like are a mix of tall and short, and tight clusters of flowers. I absolutely do not like peonies- a consequence of my landscaping days. Not a big fan of roses. I do like the look of carnations bunched tightly together, as shown in this picture:
Picture is from the Knot.
We also like the look of clusters of candles:
From Mrs. Lemon’s wedding
And here is a picture that seems to synthesize the previous pictures into pure awesomeness.
Sadly, I don’t remember where I got this one from.
The last picture is more or less exactly what we are going for. Traditional ballroom, dim lighting, gobo on the dance floor, red linens and carnation centerpieces. Yes, there is pinspotting on the tables (not possible at our venue because of restrictions) and chivari chairs (the dark blue chairs at our place will do just fine), but still. It’s awesome. And can be done within our budget.
So we don’t have exactly the most extravagant tastes. Which is good, because we definitely don’t have the most extravagant budget for a wedding with roughly 170 to 180 guests.
There are three aspects in decor that seem important: lighting, linens and centerpieces. Given our budget and our tastes, it seems that we can get the biggest bang for the buck with lighting and linens. $500 of lighting or linens goes a lot further than $500 of flowers. And neither of us are big flower people.
I’m curious, though, to know where other people are spending their decorating dollars. Where are your splurges? And where are you saving?
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20 Responses to “A Vision Of A Reception”
Cool…the lighting on the dance floor looks like dahlias.
The venue came with tables and chairs, but the chairs were kind of rickety-scary, so we opted to rent the comfortable ones with our linens, china etc. I wanted to mix elegant with rustic, so all we had to do was bring in the elegant.
We also decided that since the place was a barn, a lot of decorations would take away the cool feeling it already had. So we just rented centerpieces and called it good.
I’m curious about the no-bouquet thing…what are you going to do with your hands? And what made you decide?
I’m curious…have you priced the carnation centerpieces? I love that look and want to include that in my reception but haven’t met with any florists yet and I’m wondering how much money is saved by using a less “desirable” (I love the look of bunched carnations) flower.
The picture with all the candles is from the super talented florists R. Jack Balthazar…it’s one of my faves. Mrs. Lemon used it as inspiration at her wedding. You can see the original here http://www.rjackbalthazar.com/portfolio/weddingscelebrations/classicchic/?gal=1&pic=1
His portfolios are great to browse through.
BrideToBee - not sure about carnation pricing, although I think carnations got a bad rap because they’re fairly cheap so they are probably affordable! I don’t like single carnations but they do look quite cool when bunched together like that. You could also get a similar look with bunched hydrangeas, depending on the colour you want to use. Hydrangeas are very inexpensive in season and one bloom is quite large so you wouldn’t need too many of them to achieve that look.
We are splurging on lighting and saving on some of the flowers. For the lighting we are hanging votives from the ceiling (I am so very excited about that one) and I am thinking about using big bunches of baby’s breath like Mrs. Strawberry and ferns for some of the other decor. I do not like baby’s breath when mixed in a bouquet, but it is very cool when its in a bunch- kinda like the carnations!
I want to hear about your decision not to have a bouquet, too. I would want to hold something so that I have something to do with my hands!
Our biggest “splurge” was renting natural wood folding chairs with ivory pads. The ones that came with the reception were old and metal and were not pretty. The chairs really pulled the whole thing together and looked great for our outdoor/winery wedding.
I got the main component of our centerpieces at goodwill….a bunch of different jars. We clustered them together with single stems of dahlias and other vibrant flowers and a bunch of candles. Super cheap and really pretty.
we did tightly bunched carnations as centerpieces. i blogged about my trial here:
http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/03/20/please-dont-hate/
an awesome image mrs. bee posted here:
http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/04/03/floral-design-inspiration-from-oprahcom/
i’ll be posting pro pics soon. they turned out fab. they came out to about $27-28 each. while the flowers are cheap, getting them in a nice, uniform dome shape does take some time, apparently.
the flowers were our splurge, along with vinyl wallcovering i cut into squares to take the place of runners and to add some color to our tables. 20ish centerpieces add up, even when that cheap. we also re-used the fab manzanita branches that flanked our altar at the ceremony to flank our sweetheart table, which added some oomph. i wish i could have splurged on lighting, but our venue had restrictions and was outdoor, so it would have been very costly.
you can do all your flowers for ~$700 if you go to the flower mart and do them yourself with some friends, which is what i wanted to do…BUT, since you have to do it right before the wedding (the day before) and you’ll be super tired!
our splurge was the lighting.
(fyi, you got that last picture from a lighting company website). good luck!
Your examples are beautiful! My brother got married last Saturday and the reception was gorgeous. I really think the linens made such a difference and added so much depth and warmth to the room. Love your ideas… always very helpful.
“What are you doing to do with your hands?”
I’ve considered not having bouquets, myself, so I’ve thought about what to do with dangling hands. I plan to have my father walk me down the aisle, so one arm will be linked in his. The other hand, the one that would normally hold the bouquet? *gasp* It would be empty.
When my new husband and I leave, I’ll take his arm. And my other hand, will in fact, be empty — save for a brand new sparkly ring.
I love your ideas, Miss Dahlia.
it looks like it’s gonna be a cool and romantic wedding, judging from the photos you posted. Good luck on your special day!
we spent a lot on flowers, but in retrospect i would have spent less on flowers and invested in lighting instead. we got linens for a bargain and they really made a difference as well.
lighting may seem like an extra or splurge, but it can have a much more dramatic effect on decor/ambience than flowers!
Our splurge is on lighting and furniture rentals. We are renting chavari chairs, linens, and suede benches and ottomans for a lounge area out by the vineyard.
I just need to save up for it! Thank god my wedding is in May. LOL.
BridetoBee - I used carnations that I had bought online as an attempt to save some money for a pre-wedding event. They were used as centerpieces on the tables. I also used a few hydrangeas at that event. If you e-mail me at kestra [!at] gmail[dot]com, I’ll see if I can scan a few pics to give you an idea of how they turned out and direct you to the website I used.
I didn’t really “splurge” on anything for decor, except my time. I spent HOURS finding and making all the components to our tables… made my table runners, bought my own vases for centerpieces, made my placecards and table numbers… it was worth it to have a cohesive look.
The room itself was fabulous looking, though I can’t call it a splurge because we got the site fee waived!
I like the idea of tight carnation arrangements- I think overall the carnation gets a bad rap. It smells wonderful and looks great unified in a big bunch. and Its affordable. Spend the money elsewhere- like you mentioned on lighting.
My big splurge is lighting. To me, it is the single most powerful way to decorate and set the ambiance/mood. I’m also using lots and lots of candles in glass holders.
Second biggest splurge is a floral and crystal curtain I’m having made for my ceremony backdrop. But that is the only place I’m using flowers in the whole wedding besides bouquet.
BTW, Carnations in mass rock!
[...] Earlier, I discussed the overall vision/feel we have for the reception, and three things we are looking for: linens, flowers and lighting. Today, I bring you one element- linens. [...]
[...] meeting with florists, we had a sense of what we wanted. We knew that we wanted some mixture of high and low centerpieces, and did not want peonies or [...]
Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland
Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator
Engagement Date: December 31, 2006
Wedding Date: May 2008
Blogging Since: September 19, 2007
Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland
About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
We’re saving with not doing flowers as centerpieces but I just wanted to say how happy I am that someone else appreciates carnations. I’m using them for the bouquets and I always feel weird telling people what our flowers are because they have a bad rep with weddings for some reason.