Weddingbee Blog

There won’t be any fancy linens, or Anthropologie plates like in the wedding in my dreams, but we’re hoping our other ideas to fancy-up the tables at our reception will do the trick! First, we had to decide on layout. Our reception vendor has and suggested using round tables, which Mr. Sunbeam liked.

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I, with my bridal eyes, noted the long rectangular structure of the barn and thought two long rows of rectangular tables would emphasize the line of the barn and be oh-so-nice.

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Of course, the bride wins! Actually, Mr. Sunbeam likes my idea, so we both win. To emphasize the long lines of the tables and to add a little romance, we’re going to put a line of candles down the center of the table. You may recognize this next inspiration photo from Mrs Lemon! Picture the candles bunched, but placed in a thinner line down the table, sans rose petals.

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To pull this off, we purchased 29 packs of 5 creamy pillar candles from IKEA, which came in a variety of five different sizes. Since we can’t have open flames in an entirely wooden barn, the search for candle holders was on. My family found $1 mason jars on sale at a hardware store in two different sizes to accommodate the large and small pillars in the packs. Sadly, the 3″ wide candles (2 in each 5 pack) didn’t fit into the jars by a hair. So, we kept enough jars for the candles that did fit, and now Father Sunbeam is off to Pat Catan’s to purchase some regular clear vases for those that didn’t fit. They are $3 a pop, but we know they fit,so we’re going for it. We hope to sell all of this after the wedding.

To mix in a little bit of florals, we’re on the search for cheap small vases that can accommodate little bunches of wax flowers. Here is a kinda-sorta inspiration photo for my idea.

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The vases would hopefully be white/cream or clear and hold a little bit more than a softball-sized bunch of flowers. We’ll place these intermittently among the candles.

Another idea we have is to decorate the chairs with ribbons. I love this idea, but I’d need to find a slew of cheap ribbon to make it happen. Oh, and rent the chairs any day now. Never fear: we have back up chairs that our venue is offering, but I’m not sure they will hold grandma. Just say’n.

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We also have plenty of paper to make more poms. Maybe we’ll make one for each napkin?

As I mentioned before, the last decorative element will be our cheese places, which will be placed at every third person. This all culminates into a very blah but useful graph, which I hope to perfect and pass on to our DOC and caterer.

What are you doing for your centerpieces? Are you going with round or banquet style seating? Did anyone make a crazy graph so your vendors know what look you’re going for?