Weddingbee Blog

So here’s the thing. We have about $4,000 to spend on our at home reception. Out of that $4,000 we have to purchase food for the 200 people we are inviting, pay for rentals (tent, tables, chairs, etc.) and still have enough money to decorate the Meerkat In-Laws’ backyard with. *deep breath*

I am hoping that we can pull off a bright colored, whimsical-chic, backyard, love story themed shindig. Here is kind of the idea we are going for:

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Yeah, the budget is going to be tight but I know we can do this if we are smart about how we spend the money. The bad part is that I have high standards and I want everything to feel/look luxe even if it’s not.

On top of the budget constraint I am struggling with the fact that our reception doesn’t really have a theme outside of “our love story.”  While I am going to tie together all the food, favors and photos into the “our love story” theme, we are still going to need bold, colorful, cost effective, visual elements that tie the whole party together.

Here is what we have so far. Beside using our big pink heart above as a design element I think I would like to use chalkboards signs with colorful chalk.

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Big, bright, tissue poms on the tables and around the yard:

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I would also like to take the poms and do something like this in the roof of the clear tent we are getting:

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Or maybe some of these mixed in:

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I know the vision I have is still a bit raw but all the items are cost effective and have that colorful impact I am looking for. I really need to decide in the next couple weeks how we want to progress so that we can get projects started. *deep breath* I am trying not to panic.

Are these enough design elements to pull it all together? I would love to hear what you would add or take away if this was your very, very budget reception.