The Reception- Wedding post #4

The reception had two distinct sections that I was in charge of. A coffee bar area and a large room with tables. Below you see the bistro tables in the coffee bar area. Each had a single green vase and a doily with the same burlap ribbon treatment that we did on the pews.
At the back of the pic above is a coffee serving area. Although I did not decorate this area, certain elements were my contribution. See the little chalk board tags. Those are my creation, made with salvaged materials. I sell these tags in just about any quantity on my etsy store and they are great for weddings, as well as many other uses. We also used them to label the different beverage serving containers, Lemon-aid, Coffee, Water Etc.The bride has a great sense of style, and a knack for doing the "out of the ordinary". Her first request was green glass, Lots and lots of green glass. We began buying all that old green florist glass just after her engagement, over a year ago. You can find these old florist vases at garage sales for anywhere from a dime to a couple of dollars. Very inexpensive and when displayed in mass they looked fabulous. We were buying any green colored glass piece we could find, and various candle holders worked their way into the mix as well.
You can see one of the picture frame panels I spoke about earlier. This is a great way to add interest to walls that cannot be nailed into.

Some glass pieces had flowers, some had candles, some had crayons and even floating rose petals. One of my ideas for the table scapes was the craft paper that was draped over the tablecloths. It served several purposes. First to give the room more of a rustic feel, soften the white, make the doilies pop and for the kids, and adults, to color messages to the bride and groom etc. It worked great, and entertained the little ones, and we saved all the wonderful artwork for B&G to keep.

Now for Food-Not my responsibility

In a departure from the traditional wedding cake. The brides mother baked lots and lots of these beautiful pound cakes, which were then decorated by the ladies above and placed on a fabulous multi-level display of clear glass pieces. I hope to get a picture of it later, but I did not take one myself.

As I said before, I was not in charge of any of the food and there was a fabulous team of ladies who came in a decorated a wonderful fruit and cheese table.
My helpers set up the tables and place every piece of green glass that would work well for food display on this table. Then on Sat morning these ladies came in and worked their magic. See that fun green glass cande-lier? I found that just 2 weeks ago and knew it would be perfect for some use in the decor.
Makes your mouth water...

I hope to get better pics of the brides table as it was fabulous and a great way to save money and make a huge statement.

This wedding was absolutely beautiful, and a perfect example of how a beautiful wedding can be decorated on a budget. Below is a partial breakdown of some of the decor costs, not including food.

Green glass-unknown but most will be resold and most was under $1

Lots and Lots of white and cream doilies, Also owned by me and will be resold or re-purposed into projects, so cost zero. If I was not going to re-sell cost would be about 50-60 dollars in doilies.

Craft paper 1/2 of an industrial roll 16.00.

Table cloths, cost of cleaning only, borrowed from church

frames, $1-$2 each, painted black with spray paint about $15.00 worth of spray paint.

Lattice panels, borrowed, actual cost would have been about $115.00

Candles, All garage saled cost less than $5 total

Old books used as lifts, all owned by me or brides family cost zero.

Chalk board tags, if purchased by me .85c each

Ribbon $50.00

Plus cost of babies breath as flowers.

So you see, with a little imagination, a lot of time (to accumulate large quantities of props) it can be done inexpensively and still look fabulous.

I'm updating the post below on the chapel decorations with costs as well. Most of my readers are great re-purposers and love creating fabulous things on a budget. So I know you will appreciate the cost breakdown.

More tomorrow, gift table, and hopefully some pics of the cake table.