Wednesday, August 29, 2007

A vision of a reception

We are looking for roughly 20 centerpieces and two alter arrangements. We are not having personal flowers at all- no bouquets, no boutonnieres, no corsages. Call me crazy, but I just don't want a bouquet.

We know what we want the church to look like- simple, with minimal decorations. It's a gorgeous building, and we really want the focus to be on worship.

That said, we've been doing a lot of thinking about what we want the reception to look like. We are thinking of a monochromatic sort of look, and I pulled together the following inspiration board of reception decor.

Things we like are a mix of tall and short, and tight clusters of flowers. I absolutely do not like peonies- a consequence of my landscaping days. Not a big fan of roses. I do like the look of carnations bunched tightly together, as shown in this picture:

Picture is from the Knot.

We also like the look of clusters of candles:


From Mrs. Lemon's wedding over at Weddingbee.

And here is a picture that seems to synthesize the previous pictures into pure awesomeness.

Sadly, I don't remember where I got this one from.

The last picture is more or less exactly what we are going for. Traditional ballroom, dim lighting, gobo on the dance floor, red linens and carnation centerpieces. Yes, there is pinspotting on the tables (not possible at our venue because of restrictions) and chivari chairs (the dark blue chairs at our place will do just fine), but still. It's awesome. And can be done within our budget.

So we don't have exactly the most extravagant tastes. Which is good, because we definitely don't have the most extravagant budget for a wedding with roughly 170 to 180 guests.

There are three aspects in decor that seem important: lighting, linens and centerpieces. Given our budget and our tastes, it seems that we can get the biggest bang for the buck with lighting and linens. $500 of lighting or linens goes a lot further than $500 of flowers. And neither of us are big flower people.

I'm curious, though, to know where other people are spending their decorating dollars. Where are your splurges? And where are you saving?

2 comments:

MThornton said...

Hey, meg! I like you and Calvin's "vision." I, too love monochromatic flowers bunched together and lots of candles.
Seeing as though my budget is $15K I think it is a "splurge" that I'm spending $2K on decor--I think it's crucial to set the mood. With the $2K I'll do: linens, lighting, decor(prob dozens of paper lanterns) some draping and flowers, with flowers being the smallest expense. I feel like candles and lighting and things hanging from the ceiling do so much more than flowers....especially for a p.m. wedding/reception.
Have you figured out how you're going to do lighting yet? And have you thought about an event rental company etc.?

Bee said...

those candles are from mrs. lemon's wedding. =)