Weddingbee Blog

The shopping list for an impending wedding sure does grow in the final weeks, doesn’t it? Or… maybe that’s just mine. At any rate, I’ve been wracked with anxiety for some time now about how our serving staff should hand out bells at the end of the evening – the farewell bells that guests will use to signal our exit from the reception and our trek back to our wedding-night hotel.

I browsed Target’s site for a bit, but only came up with melamine, wooden and leather trays that were just too pricey for our needs — about 5 trays/baskets/boxes to hold the bells as they’re being handed out. I don’t want to have them just freely sitting out for guests to take themselves — for one, we’re low on surfaces in the reception area, I’m afraid they’d be too out of the way for guests to notice, and frankly, I don’t want bells ringing the whole live long night. I’d like the handing out to be more controlled. Therefore, I’m really looking for something with handles, or easily manageable by the staff.

So I jaunted over to IKEA, and found a few options that just might work.

First, there’s the Forhoja cutlery tray in birch, which could easily be spray-painted yellow or gray to match out decor and offset the pink in the bells’ ribbons and tags (shopping list addition: yellow or gray spray paint).

Image via IKEA

Then we have the Bjuron acacia plant pot. I love the loook of this wood, so I wouldn’t want to spray paint it — but I’m not sure the wood look really matches our wedding decor. Plus, the box is a bit deep, but the bells could be stacked.

Image via IKEA

And finally, there’s the Bygel wire basket. Intended to hang from the Bygel rail, this nonetheless presents a handle-type situation. Painted, it could look nice — but I’m not sure the wire look works. It might be a bit too industrial. On the plus side, the price is certainly right.

Image via IKEA

Or, I could just scour the thrift store for shallow enough baskets. At this point, that just seems like such a heavy time investment.

So what do you think, hive? Do you like any of the options presented above? Have any alternative ideas? I’ve never really seen this done, so I’m at a loss, but perhaps you’ve glimpsed something that would serve as inspiration.