Weddingbee Blog

Early in the planning process, I had linens on the brain - continuously. Our venue provides floor-length tablecloths, table skirts, and napkins in either white or ivory for us to choose from, which is wonderful! But I knew that I wanted a little something more on our tables.

That’s when it happened. I fell in love with a girl named Sadie. Wanna meet her?

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Isn’t she gorgeous?! A 90″ square overlay in plum chiffon with delicate sage and lilac embroidery; how could you NOT fall in love with her?

I’ll tell you how - when you find out that she costs $40 to rent. Times a lot of tables (probably at least 28). Plus delivery, tax, and all that jazz. Ouch.

So when my affair with Sadie abruptly ended, I got the idea to try to replicate her (or something like her) myself. Hence my previous fabric sample purchases from House of Fabrics. Now, hear me out—I was thinking “90″ squares? How hard can that be?!”

Well, let me tell you. First of all, very few fabrics (like next to none) come wide enough to cover the 90 inches, meaning that these easy-to-make square overlays now need to have a seam. The simple solution is to sew two pieces together with a seam right down the middle. But, the pretty solution is to use width of the fabric in the middle, with a seam on either side - kind of like these:

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Alas, DIYing the overlays became a thing of the past. After I already had my fabric samples. Oh, and a sewing machine (which I loooovvee). Don’t ya hate when that happens?

We found ourselves stuck between buying and renting. While the advantage of buying linens - the possibility of reselling them in order to recuperate part or all of the cost of their purchase - was tempting, the fear of not being able to resell them (among other negatives) won out, and we ended up checking out rental companies.

[Sidebar - for any brides out there looking to buy cheap linens, my fairly exhaustive search turned up the best deals at this site - good luck!]

After contacting rental companies in State College and Pittsburgh, we found the biggest selection, best deals, and nicest people at Mosaic in Pittsburgh. They have a beautiful showroom with every kind of linen you could possibly imagine - from basic solids to luxurious specialty linens in a million colors. They’ve also got a 72″ round table right there, so we were able to see our chosen overlays in action (with ivory napkins and one of my napkin rings, too!). The best part? They totally give the effect we’re looking for while being completely affordable! And they are letting us pick up our order on Thursday and return it on Monday ourselves, thus eliminating a delivery charge. Awesome! We’re getting 90″ round overlays in eggplant, and I couldn’t be happier!

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Are you dressing your tables? If so, did you end up going the DIY route?