our wedding day: decor & reception

by StephSwan - Tuesday, June 28, 2011

the main thing for me with ‘dressing-up’ the reception was that i didn’t want it to look too dressed up. for example the flowers on the tables, i wanted that to look like we got the flowers from the garden and the atmosphere needed to be relaxed – like we are sitting down for meal with family and friends at our house. that’s precisely what i got – and i LOVED it! Royal Flowers & Functions did an amazing job.

the vases, pots & candle holders i bought at different shops in south africa. the books was from a collection at my mums house & also from a store in our town. (this was used to tie in the book invitations i made). i bought so much ribbon & lace here in london that the lady at the store thought i wanted to open up my own business.

i didn’t want a runner or anything like that on my tables, so to emphasize the spectacular woodwork of the venue i wanted to use the wooden slabs as runners – again Royal Flowers made this possible for me.

i looked at THOUSANDS of different place settings examples at other brides' weddings but couldn’t find anything i liked until i saw these little heart shaped chalk boards at a little store in SA. i ordered & paid for them there and then (and this was more than a year before the wedding). i liked this because each person can keep theirs and re-use them for gift tags or anything else they want.

i didn’t like the idea of a thank you gift at every persons seat because most of the time you never use it again. so i opted for a candy table as the thank you gift to all my guests. because i currently live in the UK i decided to buy loads of candy here. (that is mainly why my suitcase was over 10kg overweight). i have to say a BIG THANK YOU to my sisters Karlien & Janine for this – because they put this together for me.