Weddingbee Blog

We’re currently in the process of selecting linens for our wedding reception. Yes, our venue comes with standard, floor-length white linens, but those don’t really jive with our “vision”. Oh, and also? When asking Mr. French Fries what, if anything, he really wanted for the wedding (besides awesome food and an open bar), I got the following answer: “chair covers.” Yes, bees… it’s true. My fiance is actually 100% on board with the chair cover concept! One less battle for me to fight, no?

So, at the suggestion of our venue’s wedding coordinator, we contacted a local linen company and met our consultant at our venue for a consultation. I had informed her of our colors (various shades of pink and black) and she said that she would come armed with various options. When we walked into the ballroom for our meeting, we stopped dead in our tracks. The first option she had set up to show us was awesome — and we promptly decided it was what we wanted. Fuchsia satin l’amour floor length linens, Morocco black lace table toppers pinned and swagged along the sides of the tables, and black l’amour chair covers tied with organza ties (in rosettes, of course). I snagged a few pictures:

The table: (I swear it wasn’t this orangey in person. The pictures below are a little more accurate, color-wise.)

Mr. French Fry’s uber-important chair cover:

A close up of the lace detail:

(all photos from my personal collection)

So, easy-peasy, right? Um, well… not exactly. You see, when talking with our consultant that night, she jokingly said, “I’ll email you a quote within a couple of days. When you get it, take your time and talk it over … maybe with a bottle of wine.” Ha! I laughed. Wine?! I wouldn’t need wine. Why in the world would I need wine? The quote came, and I opened it with a bit of hesitation. After all, she had said that we might need wine for this…

ZOMG, where’s the wine?

The quote was about three times what we had originally budgeted for linens. Now, there’s a little wiggle room for adjusting our budget… but increasing it that much was out of the question. I believe Mr. French Fries said, “Wait… they’re charging us how much, and we don’t even get to keep it at the end of the night?” Indeed.

The other problem with the linens as pictured above? I wouldn’t be able to make napkins anymore — they would completely clash with what we had goin’ on. I had already purchased 10 types of fabric (a sizeable investment), and really wanted to make the napkins for our wedding. Plus, I didn’t spend an afternoon with French Fry Mom, French Fry MOH, and French Fry B-maid cutting out 17″ napkin squares for my health. So, on to plan B.

Our plan as it currently stands is to use black polyester floor length linens (significantly cheaper than the l’amour), nix the lace toppers (cutting one cost completely), and to use the fabric that I’ve already purchased for our napkins. The chair covers will most likely remain the same, although I’m not completely sold on mixing organza ties with polyester linens and cloth napkins. Something about the shiny organza fabric/matte poly fabric thing bothers me.

What do you think? Do a different type of tie? Nix the ties completely? Do something else that I haven’t even thought of?