rave receptions
make a grand entrance to your wedding
Getting introduced into your wedding reception is a tradition that we LOVE to keep. It’s obvious you both are the guests of honor and it’s proper to make that recognition.
Here’s a couple of ideas:
- Let your wedding party go into the reception and start the party. Only you and your groom will be introduced into the wedding reception. It’s quick, clean and easy.
- Consider being introduced about half way into your cocktail party. Why miss all the fun?
- Make a real splash and do something fun and funky (but safe too). Like our clients Amanda and Brian. They had a super fun wedding party that were doing impromptu dancing and lots of fun antics. Amanda turned to my intern, Aubree, and asked, “What should we do?” Aubree suggested that Brian put Amanda on his shoulder….before the next beat, up she went!
photo credit: walker studio
What a fabulous entrance that made a great photo and the audience totally whooped it up!
So how will you enter your wedding reception?
the LAST wedding at Executive Inn, Evansville IN
We will have the last wedding at Executive Inn in Evansville, Indiana, tomorrow August 1, 2009. I’m so sorry to see this venue go, especially after the renovations that were completed in the ballrooms and atrium. The downtown stadium project has picked this location, and the hotel will be torn down.
Below are a few events that we planned and are fond of:
two photos above were taken by: studio b
Tomorrow, Alex Harlen will celebrate her wedding reception with her new groom, Kris Jones. We’ll be setting up today to make it look fabulous.
Big hugs out there to the Executive Inn staff who work tirelessly on so many private and corporate functions!
what wedding traditions should you keep? part three
Here we go with part three of the series what wedding traditions should you keep?
#3 Wedding Tradition: Garter
Approximately fifty percent of our clients are not throwing the garter or bouquet. However, if you wish to keep this time old tradition, consider purchasing only one garter. Most couples will buy “two”; one to throw and one to keep. So we question, what would you do with the one that you “keep”? Hang it on your rear view mirror on your car? We hope not. Stick it in a box? Probably. Just buy one and toss it to your friends!
Tomorrow we’ll continue this series…
what wedding traditions should you keep?
Weddings are chock full of traditions. And if you’re planning for the first time you will understand what we are talking about. Tradition is awesome, but as you know, we like to shake things up a bit around here and give you some alternatives. Especially when the wedding tradition can cost you money.
This week we are going to be discussing wedding traditions and reviewing them. The level importance is up to you decide.
#1 Wedding Tradition: Wedding Toasting Flutes
Tradition dictates that you need a special set of champagne flutes. Often these are quite expensive. Many people don’t even like champagne, so the question is, what will you do with them afterwards? My expensive Mikasa champagne flutes are collecting dust on top of my kitchen shelf. I like champagne but never get them down to use them. Instead, why not borrow a set of nice toasting flutes from a close friend/family or simply use a set from your venue?
Tomorrow we’ll continue this series…
tips on securing your wedding gifts at reception
It’s a huge concern for brides and grooms on how to secure their wedding gifts at the wedding reception. Short of having a security guard stand by the gift table the whole evening, it’s difficult to have this situation 100% effective. Usually the concern is not the large gift boxes, but the little treasures that come in the envelope cards. That’s where the real “Benjamin’s” are.
Instead of hiring the FBI to guard your gifts, let’s try these real life suggestions:
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Have someone in charge of the gift table.
Especially watching the gift cards. We monitor the gift cards for our clients by removing them and putting them in another secure location. We also move all the gifts to a predesignated family member’s car before the end of the meeting. Security is best!
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There is no such thing as a totally safe gift card box.
We’ve seen jars, birdcages, boxes that look like a cake, treasure chests, huge heavy mirror boxes and more. All of them can be opened. Obviously, how else would you get your cards out? So short of putting a safe on top of your gift table, you’ll just have to let that theory go.
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Change the location of the gift table.
It’s normal to have your gift table by the entry doors at your reception, this is so guests can drop off their gifts as they enter the room. However, if your reception is in a busy hotel you may want to consider moving your gift table across the room to a more secure location. If you do that, you’ll want to appoint a hostess to take the gifts to the table to help your guests.
If your gifts or gift cards are stolen, you should report them to the stores immediately. Through the use of surveillance cameras, the culprit can often be caught.
Bottom line; you do your best to secure your gifts, but it should not be something that you overly stress about at your wedding. There many more fun things to do!
your wedding venue, a blank canvas; finale
The finale on how we took a 4H center and transformed it into one of the most romantic wedding receptions, of ever! I can tell you the guests were BLOWN away and mouths dropped when they entered the room (if we only had pictures of that).
Remember the stage? A fantastic focal point for the cake, and it turned out better than we could of imagined. Natalie wanted a traditional head table so we put her wedding party on the floor in front of the beautiful cake display. Notice the two tall floral trees on either side!
This photo was taken from the stage looking out towards the guest tables. If you look on the far back wall, that is where we placed the food stations. To cover the roll up door and wall, we draped and uplighted the sheer white fabric. It’s an exact mirror of the draping on the stage!
Drape can be cost prohibitive, especially a room this size. So instead we used strategic LED smart lighting around the room. The uplights were beautiful and didn’t draw attention to the sterile walls, instead softly enhancing the overall look. Remember the tulle and twinkle lights? Well now with all of the other modern lightening effects, it doesn’t look so outdated!
The next three photos were taken by Equinox Wedding Photography.
I ask you, do you think you’re in a community center?
What total awesomeness of the staged wedding cake and the custom gobo light on the “dance floor”. Custom gobos are really easy to have made and add so much to your event!
The happy couple, Roddy + Natalie.
What can we say? We started setting up on Thursday for this event and broke down on Sunday. It was a long process but so worth it. It turned out to be one the most memorable weddings in 2008. It was an added bonus that Natalie and Tonya were so awesome to work with, and fun!
Hope you enjoyed the transformation, let us know if you are having to work with a challenging space!
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